The Department of Labor announced this morning that new Unemployment Insurance claims rose by 30,000 from last week's level on a seasonally adjusted basis, pointing to some continued weakness and volatility in the US labor market. There were 554,000 new UI claims last week.
Continued claims dropped by 88,000 claimants to 6,225,000. Two weeks ago, new claims had dropped by 45,000, which lowered last week's continued claims. We can expect seasonally adjusted continued claims to increase following this week's jump in new UI claims.
The 4-week moving average of new UI claims dropped by 19,000 claimants. This points to a somewhat improving economy, but an increase in new UI claims to a level above 617,000 in next week's report would change the trend in the 4-week moving average.
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