Weekly Jobless Claims Slight Improvement, But No Celebrations

The Labor Department is out with its latest weekly jobless claims and we saw a drop at -11,000 to 445,000, although the figures from a week ago were revised slightly higher to 456,000 from 453,000.  Bloomberg had a consensus of about 450,000.

In order to smooth figures out, the four week moving average fell by 3,000 to 455.750.

As far as the army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims, that figure fell by 48,000 to 4,462,000 from the prior week’s revised reading of 4,510,000.

As we are seeing with most weeks now, a very small improving trend but nothing anywhere close to levels that will help out unemployment or the broader economy.

JON C. OGG