Weekly Unemployment Claims: Down 15K - Thursday, March 17

Here is the opening statement from the Department of Labor:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending March 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 214,000, a decrease of 15,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 2,000 from 227,000 to 229,000. The 4 week moving av erage was 223,000, a decrease of 8,750 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 500 from 231,250 to 231,750. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.0 percent for the week ending March 5, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted unemployment insured during the week ending March 5 was 1,419,000, a decrease of 71,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for insured unemployment since February 21, 1970 when it was 1,412,000. The previous week's level was revised down by 4,000 from 1,494,000 to 1,490,000. The 4week moving average was 1,463,000, a decrease of 42,500 from the previous wee k's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 21, 1970 when it was 1,456,750. The previous week's average was revised down by 1,000 from 1,506,500 to 1,505,500. [See full report]

This morning's seasonally adjusted 214K new claims, down 15K from the previous week's revised figure, was below the Investing.com forecast of 220K.

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.

Here's a copy of the above chart, but zoomed in, so the COVID spike isn't as prominent. We'll be adding a few more of these "zoomed in" looks in the coming weeks.

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 a sample of 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.