Weekly Jobless Claims Pressure Continues

The reading on the weekly jobless claims were down marginally after a slight revision higher from the prior week’s report.  The Labor Department reported that weekly jobless claims were down 1,000 to 404,000 for the week.  Bloomberg had a consensus reading of 405,000 expected versus a prior unadjusted reading of 401,000 the week before.

The four-week average managed to fall by 7,000 down to 408,000 and the army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims were down another 55,000 to 3.67 million.

Unfortunately, we are still way off the mark on what needs to be happening for a true recovery in the jobs market.  These reports need to get down closer to 300,000 for the jobs market to go to a Neutral bias that can slowly attack the high unemployment rate.

JON C. OGG