In addition to the jobs report, because this is Thursday we also got the latest jobless claims numbers.

To wit, initial claims declined -4,000 to 233,000, and the four week moving average declined -3,750 to 241,500. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims were unchanged at 1.964 million:

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The more important for forecasting purposes YoY% changes for once included a positive, as initial claims were down -2.1%. The four week average was higher by 1.8%, and continuing claims were higher by 5.4%:

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Because claims for just one week are noisy, this week’s report remains neutral. This is not recessionary, but does not indicate a strong economy either.

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