US jobless claims slipped in the week to June 15, Thursday’s update showed.

Initial filers were 238,000 during the week, down 5,000 from an upwardly revised 243,000 prior. (And here I thought we were making progress.)

Recall that claims were the highest since August in the last update, good news if you’re secure in your job and possessed of financial assets that’ll benefit from easier Fed policy in the event of labor market weakness.

238,000 was actually above estimates. Economists saw 235,000. So, despite the week-to-week drop, this initial claims print — for NFP survey week, mind you — does underscore the contention that the US labor market’s softening.

The four-week moving average is now 232,750, the highest since the week to September 2.

“Compared to episodes when the Fed cut outside of a recession, current labor market conditions are still stronger than at the time of the first rate cuts in 1995 and 1998 but comparable to conditions in 2019 when the FOMC lowered the policy rate because of concerns over the spillover effects from the trade war,” Goldman’s Elsie Peng and Jessica Rindels said this week.

Notably, Goldman’s analysis showed that given current labor market conditions, Fed rate-cut decisions should be most sensitive to the jobless rate and continuing claims, not the NFP headline.

As the figure shows, and as Peng and Rindels explained, “a one standard deviation deterioration in the unemployment rate or in continuing claims would raise the probability of a cut by 15% and 20%, respectively.”

If you’re curious, those thresholds — a one standard deviation deterioration — are 0.15ppt on the jobless rate and a 94,000 increase for continuing claims.

Ongoing claims in the week to June 8 were 1.828 million, Thursday’s release showed. That was ahead of estimates and tied (basically) for the highest since November of 2021.

It was the seventh consecutive weekly increase. The total advance over those seven weeks was 60,000.