Initial claims of unemployment in regular state programs fell by 18,000 to 215,000 in the week ended February 26. The medan estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg had been 225,000.
For the week ended December 25, U.S. workers filed 198,000 new claims for unemployment, a drop of 8,000 from the previous week and below the 206,000 initial claims expected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Continuing claims for unemployment for the week ended December 18 were 1.716 million against an expected 1.875 million. The continuing claims number was a pandemic low. Economists are now looking to a further drop in the official unemployment rate for December
Initial unemployment claims at regular state unemployment programs doped to 348,000 for the week ended August 14. That’s down from a revised 377,000 in the prior week and below the 364,000 projected by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The four-week moving average for new climbs fell by 19,000 to 377,750. The drop was the fourth straight weekly decline and took the weekly number down to the lowest level since March 2020. Just for reference, though, new claims for unemployment averaged 200,000 a week before the Pandemic.
This morning, May 27, the Department of Labor announced that new claims for unemployment in regular state programs fell to 406,000 for the week ended on May 22. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had expected initial claims of 425,000 for the week. Initial claims in the prior eek were 444,000.
A day after the market plunged on worse than expected inflation numbers for April, today, May 12, stocks moved up to recover part of their drop on another decree in the weekly initial claims for unemployment numbers. For the week ending May 8, seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment in regular state programs was 473,000. That’s a decrease of 34,000 from the previous week’s revised level. And it’s the lowest level for new claims for unemployment since the week of March 14, 2020. (That’s before the pandemic recession really hit full speed.) For the week of March 14, 2020, initial claims for unemployment wee 256,000.
