Weekly Jobless Claims Hit One-Month Low Ahead of Unemployment

This week marks a very important week for the jobs picture in America due to unemployment and nonfarm payrolls coming out on Friday. Now we have the Labor Department’s last real number before that report via weekly jobless claims. Claims came in at 330,000 for the past week.

This report was pretty much in-line with expectations of 331,000 from Bloomberg and 335,000 expected from Dow Jones. Last week’s revision was also sent to 345,000 from a prior 339,000. The new report was the lowest level in more than a month.

Two more key metrics were seen as well. The four-week average, aimed at smoothing out volatility, fell by 9,750 to 349,000. The number of continuing claims, the army of the unemployed — with a one week lag — rose by 50,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2,865,000.

The ADP report was much stronger than expected, and that is lifting the expectations for the payrolls data due Friday. Bloomberg has expectations of 200,000 in nonfarm payrolls and 189,000 in private sector payrolls, but the whisper numbers are rising on both figures now.