Market expectations for weekly initial unemployment claims (from Econoday) were 875 K to 1,000 K (consensus 963 K), and the Department of Labor reported 1,106,000 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 1,254,750 (reported last week as 1,252,750) to 1,175,750
Analyst Opinion of Initial Unemployment Claims
According to the BLS:
The COVID-19 virus continues to impact the number of initial claims and insured unemployment. This report includes information on claimants filing Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation claims.
Jobs loss since the start of the pandemic is now 57,685,000. Many in this number are now employed or have dropped out of the workforce as the continuing claims number is 28,059,349].
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 445 % higher than one year ago (versus the 483 % higher last week).
Claim levels before the coronavirus pandemic were 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).
States with the Biggest Increases in Unemployment Due to Coronavirus
Source: WalletHub
From the Department of Labor:
In the week ending August 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 1,106,000, an increase of 135,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 8,000 from 963,000 to 971,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,175,750, a decrease of 79,000 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 2,000 from 1,252,750 to 1,254,750.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 10.2 percent for the week ending August 8, a decrease of 0.4 percentage point from the previous week’s unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending August 8 was 14,844,000, a decrease of 636,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 6,000 from 15,486,000 to 15,480,000. The 4-week moving average was 15,841,250, a decrease of 326,750 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised down by 1,500 from 16,169,500 to 16,168,000.
Continued claims give a good idea of the real unemployment levels as some unemployed would have found another job.
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