Weekly Unemployment Claims: Up 6K, Worse Than Forecast
Here is the opening statement from the Department of Labor:
In the week ending March 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 229,000, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 223,000. The 4-week moving average was 223,750, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week's unrevised average of 226,250. [See full report]
This morning's seasonally adjusted 229K new claims, up 6K from the previous week's 223K, was worse than the Investing.com forecast of 225K.
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 in relation to the last recession.
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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.
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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).
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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. We can see that this metric continues to fall below the long-term trend stretching back to 1968.
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Annual Comparisons
Here is a calendar-year overlay since 2009 using the 4-week moving average. The purpose is to compare the annual slopes since the peak in the spring of 2009, near the end of the Great Recession.
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For an analysis of unemployment claims as a percent of the labor force, see regularly updated piece The Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims, and the Business Cycle. Here is a snapshot from that analysis.
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