Jobless Claims
Due to their timeliness and high frequency the initial jobless claims have become one of the main predictors of the US labour market conditions since they were first published by the US Department of Labour in 1967.
The initial jobless claims have proven to be a successful leading indicator that has predicted not only the increases in the US unemployment rate during previous downturns, but also the business cycle turning points. In 2008, the most recent example, the jobless claims had started to climb rapidly since early-May, while the unemployment rate remained relatively flat until the last quarter of the year when it started to increase gradually.[1]
Even though the initial jobless claims remain a powerful gauge that provides an early picture of the US labour market, there are some peculiarities that need to be considered, especially for extreme values like the ones observed recently. First, the data does not reflect the net job losses. Instead, the initial jobless claims data counts only the new unemployed that lost their job during the reference week, but it does not take into account people who have found new jobs during that week.
The indicator that reflects the net increase in jobless claims is the continued jobless claims, i.e. the number of people that receive unemployment benefits in a given period. In other words, a change in the current jobless claims for a week reflects the initial jobless claims less the number of people who had been receiving unemployment benefits, but have found a job during week.[1]
February 2023
- Initial jobless claims currently at 194,000. It is up 15% since the trough in March 2022 [2]
- Continued jobless claims currently at 1,696,000. it is 30% since the trough in March 2022 [3]
April 2023
- Initial jobless claims currently at 198,000. It is up 15% since the trough in March 2022[4]
- Continued jobless claims currently at 1,689,000. it is 30% since the trough in March 2022[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 https://info.ceicdata.com/reading-the-us-jobless-claims-data-right
- ↑ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA#:~:text=An%20initial%20claim%20is%20a,for%20the%20Unemployment%20Insurance%20program.
- ↑ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCSA
- ↑ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA#:~:text=An%20initial%20claim%20is%20a,for%20the%20Unemployment%20Insurance%20program
- ↑ https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CCSA