The holiday-impacted plunge in initial US jobless claims was an anomaly. Who could’ve known?

Last week, when the initial filers series dove to the lowest since September of 2022, I gently suggested readers write it off to Thanksgiving holiday distortions.

“Notwithstanding that claims were subdued already, I guarantee you that’s a fluke,” I wrote, of the 191,000 headline print. “It’s meaningless until proven otherwise.”

Fast forward a week and it wasn’t. Proven otherwise, I mean. Claims jumped 44,000 in the week to December 6, the largest increase since 2021.

The headline’s now the highest since early September. The four-week average ticked up to 216,750.

Economists — God bless ’em — reckoned the headline at 220,000, which is to say they weren’t close.

Continuing claims, meanwhile, plummeted. 1.838 million was the lowest since April. (Economists weren’t anywhere close on that either, by the way.)

As the figure shows, the 99,000 week-to-week drop was the largest since December 18, 2021.

Remember: The ongoing filers series is reported on a two-week delay. So, Thursday’s print was for Thanksgiving week.