Let’s take our weekly look at initial claims, the first indicator that should show stress in any rising unemployment scenario.

Last week initial jobless claims rose 2,000 to 223,000, and the four week average rose 750 to 227,000. With the typical one week delay, continuing claims rose 33,000 to 1.892 million:

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On the more important YoY basis for forecasting purposes, initial claims were up 5.2%, the four week average was up 7.2%, and continuing claims were up 5.4%:

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These are all neutral readings, indicating continued slow growth in the economy.

Finally, since initial claims have a very long history of leading the unemployment rate, here is our update of that:

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With initial and initial+continuing claims both up roughly 5% YoY, that suggests that in the next few months the unemployment rate should tend towards a reading of 4.1%, which is last year’s 3.8%*1.05, and was also the unemployment rate in February. So for the moment, there is no additional upward pressure on unemployment.

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