It is, of course, Thursday. And if it's Thursday, it's time for unemployment!
If you recall from last week, we had an advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for the week of April 28 come in at 365,000, beating expectations. The advance figure for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment also declined to 3,276,000. Even the unadjusted numbers were good: the advance figure for actual initial claims came in at 330,476, and the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs (as of April 14) was 6,597,492.
For the week ending May 5, the Econoday-surveyed analysts are bearish. But they're so mildly bearish that it hardly counts, expecting the new claims level to rise to 366,000. Are they right? Only the Department of Labor knows for sure.
Speaking of the DoL, let's have a look at the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report for May 5. The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims came in at 367,000. Technically, that misses expectations. But it missed by so little that I think we can give it to them; it certainly won't crush anybody's spirits. The initial claims figure for April 28 was also adjusted upwards to 368,000; again, not as bad as it could have been.
The advance figure for for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment comes in at 3,229,000, a decline from last week. Even if you ignore the upward revision of last week's level to 3,290,500.
Looking at unadjusted numbers, the actual initial claims for May 5 came in at 338,418 and the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending April 21 came in at 6,423,383.
So, overall, a week that met expectations.
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