The U.S. Labor Department is out with its weekly jobless claims, and so far there are no real changes despite the numbers being slightly lower than what had been historic trends. The jobless claims tallied 439,000 this last week versus a revised 437,000 the week before. Dow Jones had listed estimates of 443,000 earlier in the week.
The four-week moving average fell to the lowest level since September 2008. That figure fell 4,000 to 443,000 from last week’s revised figure of 447,000.
The army of unemployed measured by the continuing claims fell another 48,000 to 4,295,000 from a revised figure of 4,343,000 last week.
These numbers are lower than they had been. The problem is that these have to fall significantly further before that 9.6% unemployment figure improves greatly. The other issue is that more and more are falling out of the system, and that is something that ultimately has to be resolved as well.
JON C. OGG
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