For the recession spotters out there, US jobless claims rose the most since May in the week to August 16, Thursday’s update showed.

235,000 on the headline counted as the highest since July 12, and it’ll be viewed, perhaps, as incremental evidence of labor market softening at a time when every would-be macro maven’s focused on a nascent turn in the jobs numbers.

Consensus was looking for 225,000 from Thursday’s readout.

The prior week was unrevised. The four-week moving average is now 226,250, the highest in five weeks.

As the chart reminds you, claims spiked meaningfully in May and early-June, kissing 250,000, before dropping like a stone to hit a local low of 217,000 on July 19.

The continuing claims series moved up to 1.972 million, that was well ahead of the 1.96 million economists expected, a 30,000 increase from the prior week and counted as yet another new “since 2021” high.

Make of it what you will. It won’t move any needles for markets. Particularly not given the proximity to Jackson Hole.