Market expectations for weekly initial unemployment claims (from Econoday) were 2000 K to 4500 K (consensus 3,350 K), and the Department of Labor reported 6,648,000 new claims. The more important (because of the volatility in the weekly reported claims and seasonality errors in adjusting the data) 4 week moving average moved from 1,004,250 (reported last week as 998,250) to 2,612,000.
Analyst Opinion of Initial Unemployment Claims
According to the BLS:
The COVID-19 virus continues to impact the number of initial claims. Nearly every state providing comments cited the COVID-19 virus. States continued to identify increases related to the services industries broadly, again led by accommodation and food services. However, state comments indicated a wider impact across industries. Many states continued to cite the health care and social assistance, and manufacturing industries, while an increasing number of states identified the retail and wholesale trade and construction industries.
The pandemic has so far caused 10,000,000 job lost.
It should be pointed out that Econintersect watches the year-over-year change in the 4-week moving average. There is always some seasonality that migrates into the seasonally adjusted data, and year-over-year comparisons help remove some seasonality. The four-week rolling average of initial claims is 1102 % higher than one year ago (versus the 358 % higher last week) – and is higher than any historical value for this data set.
.
Claim levels are at 40-year lows (with the normal range around 350,000 weekly initial unemployment claims of levels seen historically during times of economic expansion – see chart below).
From the Department of Labor:
In the week ending March 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 6,648,000, an increase of 3,341,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series. The previous week’s level was revised up by 24,000 from 3,283,000 to 3,307,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,612,000, an increase of 1,607,750 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 6,000 from 998,250 to 1,004,250.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.1 percent for the week ending March 21, an increase of 0.9 percentage point from the previous week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 21 was 3,029,000, an increase of 1,245,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This is the highest level for insured unemployment since July 6, 2013 when it was 3,079,000. The previous week’s level was revised down by 19,000 from 1,803,000 to 1,784,000. The 4-week moving average was 2,053,500, an increase of 327,250 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the highest level for this average since January 14, 2017 when it was 2,062,000. The previous week’s average was revised down by 4,750 from 1,731,000 to 1,726,250.
include(“/home/aleta/public_html/files/ad_openx.htm”); ?>
