The Labor Department has released some mixed data on weekly jobless claims. The figures show a level of 631,000. This sounds better on the surface as Bloomberg had estimates pegged at 645,000, which would have been a drop of another 8,000 from last week’s unaltered 637,000. But the prior week’s reading was revised to 643,000.
The four-week average came in at a drop of some 3,500 to 628,500 jobs. The biggest problem here is in the continuing jobless claims of workers who have been repeat benefit recipients. This rose by 75,000 to another record at 6.662 million.
The number looks better on the surface, but the data is not getting better and the chances of double-digit unemployment by the end of the year is now looking more and more possible.
JON C. OGG
May 21, 2009
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