Weekly Unemployment Claims: Down 14K

Here is the opening statement from the Department of Labor:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending July 31, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 385,000, a decrease of 14,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 1,000 from 400,000 to 399,000. The 4-week moving average was 394,000, a decrease of 250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 250 from 394,500 to 394,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.1 percent for the week ending July 24, a decrease of 0.3 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 24 was 2,930,000, a decrease of 366,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for insured unemployment since March 14, 2020 when it was 1,770,000. The previous week's level was revised up 27,000 from 3,269,000 to 3,296,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,188,250, a decrease of 109,250 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 21, 2020 when it was 2,071,750. The previous week's average was revised up by 6,750 from 3,290,750 to 3,297,500. [See full report]

This morning's seasonally adjusted 385K new claims, down 14K from the previous week's revised figure, was slightly worse than the Investing.com forecast of 384K.

Here is a close look at the data over the decade (with a callout for the past year), which gives a clearer sense of the overall trend.

As we can see, there's a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week moving average (the highlighted number) is a more useful number than the weekly data. Here is the complete data series.

The headline Unemployment Insurance data is seasonally adjusted. What does the non-seasonally adjusted data look like? See the chart below, which clearly shows the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data (the red dots). The 4-week MA gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change (note, for example, those regular January spikes).

Because of the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, we can add a 52-week moving average to give a better sense of the secular trends. The chart below also has a linear regression through the data.

Here's a look at each year's claims going back to 2009.

For an analysis of unemployment claims as a percent of the labor force, see this regularly updated piece The Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims, and the Business Cycle. Here is a snapshot from that analysis.