The Labor Department has released its weekly jobless claims. It seems that the contraction in weekly claims is not running in a straight line. This week’s report came in at 637,000 from a revised figure the week before of 605,000 (from 601,000). Bloomberg had consensus estimates from economists pegged at 609,000 from an unrevised 601,000 reported the week before.
The big dent here is in the continuing jobless claims. That figure grew by 202,000 to a whopping 6.56 million. Again, this is a high.
The four-week average which is meant to smooth out the volatility came in at +6,000 to 630,500.
Unfortunately, the rate in unemployment has no indications yet that 10% will not be seen by the end of the recession. By ‘unofficial counts’ that figure is actually much larger when you include part-timers, non-seekers, and the under-employed or basic contract labor pool.
JON C. OGG
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