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US Jobless Claims Just Collapsed
US jobless claims were -- umm -- very, very low in the week to January 4, according to Wednesday's update, published a day early ahead of Thursday's holiday.
At just 201,000, the headline initial filers print was the lowest since the mid-February. Consensus was looking for 215,000.
Over the past two weeks, claims have fallen by 19,000, and are now down 59,000 from the local peak in early-October, when bad weather drove a sharp uptick.
The four-week moving average collapsed to just 213,000,
Does the federal government have this claims data a few days ahead of time and just release it normally on Thursday mornings? Or did they change how they obtained the data / “smoothed” the data with one less day of information to be able to release it on Wednesday?
Job market seems back to pre-pandemic levels, looking at hires, quits, initial, continuing. Only openings is elevated above 2019 levels. On a macro level that seems neither bad nor good. Some specific industries and the unemployed therein have it worse.
Some watch temporary/contract staffing as a supposedly more sensitive/leading indicator. Idea being companies flex up/down with temps/contractors before making the commitment to hire/fire permanents. Here is an interesting chart source. https://americanstaffing.net/research/asa-data-dashboard/asa-staffing-index/#tab:fiftytwo-week-chart Note gig work may have affected this.
Thanks for the link. A couple times when my daughter has been on the prowl for a change her head-hunter has hired her for six months, paid her, provided benefits but only on trial. When I lived in Cedar Falls Iowa there were two firms that maintained stables of qualified professionals of all types just to serve Deere. They would do projects and return to the agencies. I did a study for the big guys to see how much risk that created for the users of those temps. I can’t say what I found. Interesting problem, though.
JL – Thanks for the link. Back when I believed that economic data mattered, I also carefully monitored the temporary workers stats in the monthly U/P reports for the reason you mentioned.