Jobless claims continue to impress in the new year. For the fifth week in a row, seasonally adjusted initial claims have come in with a sub-200K reading. That is the longest streak since a 10-week-long stretch ending in April of last year. Although claims have remained at a healthy level, there hasn’t been much in the way of improvement over the last few weeks with claims yet to move below the 183K low at the end of January.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, the first few months of the year tends to see a sharp unwind in claims, albeit with some moderation during the current week of the year which is being observed currently with fairly flat readings in claims over the past few weeks. At current levels, this year’s reading was roughly in line with the comparable week of the past several years with the exception of the much more elevated reading in 2021.

While not to say the reading is at unhealthy levels, continuing claims have not been as strong as initial claims. Claims have risen in each of the past two weeks, totaling 1.696 million in the most recent print. That is the highest level since the week of December 24th. Overall, both initial and continuing claims continue to show healthy readings without much in the way of rapid improvement or deterioration. 

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