Weekly Unemployment Claims: 779K New Claims, Better Than Forecast

Here is the opening statement from the Department of Labor:

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending January 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 779,000, a decrease of 33,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 35,000 from 847,000 to 812,000. The 4-week moving average was 848,250, a decrease of 1,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 18,500 from 868,000 to 849,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.2 percent for the week ending January 23, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending January 23 was 4,592,000, a decrease of 193,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 14,000 from 4,771,000 to 4,785,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,881,750, a decrease of 120,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 3,750 from 4,998,000 to 5,001,750. [See full report]

This morning's seasonally adjusted 779K new claims, down from the previous week's revised figure, was better than the Investing.com forecast of 830K.

Here is a close look at the data over the decade (with a callout for the past year), which gives a clearer sense of the overall trend.

Unemployment Claims since 2007

As we can see, there's a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week moving average (the highlighted number) is a more useful number than the weekly data. Here is the complete data series.

Unemployment Claims

The headline Unemployment Insurance data is seasonally adjusted. What does the non-seasonally adjusted data look like? See the chart below, which clearly shows the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data (the red dots). The 4-week MA gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change (note, for example, those regular January spikes).

Because of the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, we can add a 52-week moving average to give a better sense of the secular trends. The chart below also has a linear regression through the data.

Nonseasonally Adjusted 52-week MA

Here's a look at each year's claims going back to 2009.

For an analysis of unemployment claims as a percent of the labor force, see this regularly updated piece The Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims, and the Business Cycle. Here is a snapshot from that analysis.

Initial Claims to the CLF

 

Disclosure: None.

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