Weekly Unemployment Claims: Up 7K

Here is the opening statement from the Department of Labor:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending March 26, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 202,000, an increase of 14,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 187,000 to 188,000. The 4-week moving average was 208,500, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 250 from 211,750 to 212,000. The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 0.9 percent for the week ending March 19, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 19 was 1,307,000, a decrease of 35,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for insured unemployment since December 27, 1969 when it was 1,304,000. The previous week's level was revised down by 8,000 from 1,350,000 to 1,342,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,389,000, a decrease of 40,500 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since February 7, 1970 when it was 1,385,250. The previous week's average was revised down by 2,000 from 1,431,500 to 1,429,500. [See full report]

This morning's seasonally adjusted 202K new claims, up 14K from the previous week's revised figure, was above the Investing.com forecast of 197K.

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.