First Time Jobless Claims

It's that time of the week already.  So let's brace ourselves for the last bit of employment data we get before tomorrow's Employment Situation report - the oft-revised First Time Jobless Claims!

 

Last week, the seasonally adjusted initial claims figures for the week ending 7/23 came in at 398,000.  Which nicely beat expectations (except for that pesky 87.81% chance that it will be revised upwards today).  Actual initial claims fell as well, dropping to a level of 366,578, with the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending 7/9 rising to 7,645,601.

 

And what are the Econoday-surveyed analysts thinking for the week ending 7/30?  They're thinking that we'll see an uptick in the number of people filing for benefits, and the consensus prediction is for a seasonally-adjusted 403,000 new claims.  But are they right?  Let's go to the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report and find out.

 

First off, to nobody's surprise, the figures for 7/23 were revised upwards to 401,000 new claims[1].  The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for the week ending 7/30 then comes in at 401,000, beating expectations by 2000.  The unadjusted initial claims for the same period come in at 339,348, a decline of 27,230.  And the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending 7/16 comes in at 7,570,439 (a decline of 75,162).

 

All things considered, this wasn't too bad a report.

 

[1]  Still beating last week's expected 423k new claims, but also meaning that we now have 19 upward adjustments out of 23 total weeks