The Labor Department is out with data on the weekly jobless claims. While the week was ahead of a three-day weekend, the report showed that weekly jobless claims fell by a whopping 52,000 down to 352,000 for the best reading in quite some time. The prior week’s reading of 399,000 was revised slightly higher to 402,000.
Blomberg had a consensus reading of about 383,000 expected and the lowest projected claims figure we saw was at 370,000. This week’s figure is hard to argue negatively against despite the caveats of labor participation.
The four-week average decreased by 3,500 to 379,000. As far as the army of unemployed, the continuing jobless claims (with a one-week lag) fell by a whopping 215,000 down to a new reading of 3,432,000. The continuing claims will have some of the same arguments about labor participation, but that number is good to see coming down and it sets the tone for yet another big improvement next week.
JON C. OGG
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