Jobless Claims Offer Little Hope For Friday's Payrolls Data

Weekly Jobless Claims were just released by the US Labor Department and the numbers came in at 570,000 again on the preliminary claims figure.  Last week was originally reported as 570,000, and that figure was revised to 574,000. The four-week average rose by 4,000 to 571,250. The army of the unemployed measured by the continuing claims is going the wrong way and sets a prelude for making the July unemployment rate drop look like a fluke.  This figure rose by another 92,000 to 6,234,000 after being listed a week ago as 6.133 million.

The good news is that we are not seeing the old 600,000 plus and that the army of continuing claims is not challenging that 7 million mark.  Either way, this does not set the tone for a great unemployment and non-farm payrolls data for Friday.

Technically, this data might not be a window until the September unemployment data and non-Farm payrolls.  But this will not exactly act to drive tomorrow’s unemployment under the Bloomberg estimate of 9.6% nor will it exactly add a belief that non-farm payrolls will come in much better than the Bloomberg estimate of -200,000 for non-Farm Payrolls.

JON C. OGG