As expected, jobless claims declined from one week ago, as the delayed Thanksgiving week seasonality moved out of the numbers.

Initial claims declined -22,000 to 220,000, while the four week moving average increased 1,250 to 225,500. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims declined -5,000 to 1.870 million:

On the more important YoY basis, initial claims were higher by 6.3%, and the four week average higher by 7.3%. Continuing claims were also higher, by 3.9%:

Because the initial claims numbers include the weeks before, of, and after Thanksgiving, the seasonality effects should be a wash; which means that while they are not recessionary, they do imply some real weakness.

Finally, here is the look at initial and continuing claims averaged over the entire month, compared with the unemployment rate. Note all of these are rendered as YoY% changes:

One year ago the unemployment rate was 3.7%. The latest claims comparisons suggest that (absent the effects of mass immigration in the past several years) the rate should be trending higher by about 5%-10% over that level. Since this is a percent of a percent, that means trending towards 3.9%-4.1%, which is a lower range than the rate has been in the past five months. 

More importantly, with one exception weekly jobless claims have come in higher YoY every week since the beginning of September. I’m continuing to take these numbers with an extra dash of seasonality salt, but at this point claims are joining the list of indicators - ever so slightly - suggesting weakening of the economy ahead.

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