Weekly Jobless Claims Heading Eerily North of 400,000 (VZ)

Weekly jobless claims from the Labor Department are heading the wrong way again.  The hopes have been growing that these would go back under 400,000.  Not so… The weekly jobless claims rose by 5,000 to a reading of 417,000.  Estimates were roughly 405,000 that we had seen.

To make matters worse, the report from last week was revised higher to 412,000 from 408,000.  The report is interesting because it notes that striking workers from Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE: VZ) added at least 8,500 claims last week and that they added 12,500 claims a week prior.  So, the Labor Department allows striking workers to immediately seek unemployment benefits?  In this economy?

The 4-week average also rose by 4,000 to 407,500.  The army of unemployed, measured by the continuing jobless claims with a one-week lag, came down by 80,000 to 3,641,000 at the August 13 reading.

Maybe you can blame Verizon for the gains, or maybe you can take that at face value.  Either way, things are not heading in the right direction on the jobs front.

JON C. OGG