The U.S. economy now has seen about seven straight months in which weekly jobless claims have come in under 300,000. A report on Thursday from the U.S. Labor Department showed weekly claims rising by 3,000 claims to some 267,000. Bloomberg and Dow Jones both had their consensus estimates pegged at 275,000.
One measurement aiming to smooth out such claims is the four-week average. This was down marginally, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) said again that there were no special factors which influenced or skewed the weekly claims report.
Continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag, and 24/7 Wall St. refers to this figure as the army of the unemployed. Continuing claims continue to come down as well, with the 2.242 million continuing claims being down about 25,000 from the average in August.
Another measurement is the unemployment rate for insured employees, which continues to remain flat at 1.7%.
The weekly claims data will not be enough to skew any unemployment or payrolls reports for the coming September report that will be seen in just over a week. That being said, weekly claims have not been real market-moving reports for some time now.
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