Jobless Claims Hit Two-and-a-Half Year Lows

The weekly jobless claims are finally back under the 400,000 mark.  Today’s reading showed that the drop was 36,000 down to 383,000.  To show just what a relief it is, this was the lowest reading since summer of 2008.  Economists had a consensus figure of 411,000 from Dow Jones.

The reading from the week before was revised to 419,000 from 415,000.

The army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims, which has a week lag, also came down 47,000 to 3.888 million.

This is good news on the surface.  Unfortunately, it is still not quite a neutral reading to the true unemployment and non-farm payrolls released each month.

JON C. OGG