Jobless Claims Still in Purgatory

The weekly jobless claims are out from the Labor Department and the results are not as bad as the week before.  They are not exactly solid yet either.  The claims figure fell by a revised 14,000 figure to 460,000 for the week.  Bloomberg had a consensus figure of 450,000 for this morning.  The problem is that the already-weak figures from a week ago were moved to 474,000 from 471,000.

For those who care about the four week average, that figure rose by 2,250 to 456,500.

Perhaps the only good news herein is that the army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims fell by 49,000 to 4,607,000 versus the revised level of 4,656,000 from a week ago.

No reason to celebrate yet.  Until these jobless claims dip under 400,000 and get closer to 300,000, there is no real jobs recovery happening.

JON C. OGG

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