Market expectations for weekly initial unemployment claims (from Econoday) were 720 K to 915 K (consensus 806 K), and the Department of Labor reported 885,000 new claims. The more important (because of the volatility in the weekly reported claims and seasonality errors in adjusting the data) 4 week moving average moved from 778,250 (reported last week as 776,000) to 812,500

Analyst Opinion of Initial Unemployment Claims

Job's loss since the start of the pandemic is now 71,552,000. Many in this number are now employed or have dropped out of the workforce as all programs continuing claims number is 20,646,779 up from last week's 19,043,429

It should be pointed out that Econintersect watches the year-over-year change in the 4-week moving average. There is always some seasonality that migrates into the seasonally adjusted data, and year-over-year comparisons help remove some seasonality. The four-week rolling average of initial claims is 268 % higher than one year ago (versus the 253 % higher last week).

Claim levels before the coronavirus pandemic were at 40-year lows (with the normal range around 350,000 weekly initial unemployment claims of levels seen historically during times of economic expansion - see chart below).

From the Department of Labor:

In the week ending December 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 885,000, an increase of 23,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 9,000 from 853,000 to 862,000. The 4-week moving average was 812,500, an increase of 34,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 2,250 from 776,000 to 778,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8 percent for the week ending December 5, 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 December 5 was 5,508,000, a decrease of 273,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 24,000 from 5,757,000 to 5,781,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,726,250, a decrease of 215,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 6,000 from 5,935,750 to 5,941,750.

Continued claims give a good idea of the real unemployment levels as some unemployed would have found another job.