As is so often the case this time of year, seasonality likely played havoc with this week’s new jobless claims. Last year Thanksgiving was November 23rd; this year it was the 28th, putting it in a different week for many statistics.

So the jobless claims this morning were for the first full week after Thanksgiving, whereas last year the equivalent week was one week before. And on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, claims jumped from 211,000 last week to 310,000 this week, as we moved from a 3 day workweek back to a 5 day workweek.

With that massive helping of salt, here are the seasonally adjusted numbers. 

Initial claims rose 17,000 to 242,000, a seven week high. The four week moving average rose 5,750 to 224,250, still below average for the past two months. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims rose 15,000 to 1.886 million, right in the middle of their range for the past two months:

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On the YoY basis more important for forecasting purposes, initial claims were up 18.0%, while the four week moving average was only up 5.9%. Continuing claims were up 3.7%:

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This is a case where the four week average is giving a much truer reading. In fact, I think it is best to average several of the past weeks even in that metric together. And I doubt the seasonality will completely abate next week either.

Also, because this is the first full week of the month, I’ll dispense with any look at what this might mean for the unemployment rate in the next monthly jobs report.

The takeaway here is to beware any one week’s number in this season of seasonality. Both the four week average and continuing claims say that the situation is a little weaker than one year ago, but nowhere near being negative. Score this week as another neutral reading. 

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