Weekly Jobless Claims Maintain Good Stance Started The Prior Week

The Labor Department is out with another improvement in the weekly jobless claims.  Hopefully it is not just holiday related, but investors will likely take it either way.  This last week’s jobless claims fell by 4,000 to 364,000.

The prior week’s large drop was lightly revised higher to 368,000 rather than the much better report of 366,000.  The good news is that the drop that week had been massive, so the revision does not take away much of the gains.

To smooth out the figure, there is also the four-week average and that figure fell by 8,000 to 380,250. 

Another key metric is the weekly report (with a 1 week lag) on the army of unemployed measured by the continuing jobless claims.  This dropped by 79,000 to 3,546,000 and that coincides with last week’s dig drop in weekly jobless claims.

These numbers are not quite to the point that they will pose a huge boost to prevent the employment situation from being poor, but it is definitely closer than it has been in ages.

JON C. OGG