Another week, another rock-bottom — which is to say completely benign — read on US jobless claims.
On the heels of the second sub-200,000 initial filers headline in as many months, claims printed 200,000 on the nose for the week to January 17 in Thursday’s update.
That was below consensus. Again. Economists were looking for 209,000. Do note: This release covered NFP survey week.
I suppose it’s possible we’re still picking up some holiday distortions, but whatever the case, it’s rare that the claims headline prints at or below 200,000.
As the figure shows, the four-week average is now on the brink of falling below 200,000 too. That hasn’t happened since October of 2022. In fact, it’s almost never happened.
Have a look at the chart below, which shows you the entire history of the four-week average for the initial filers headline deflated by 200,000 (i.e., it shows whether, and by how much, the four-week average exceeded or undershot 200,000).
Only two times since 1969 has the rolling average slipped below 200,000 on a four-week lookback. (It came close during the week of January 13, 2024.)
One more factoid: Out of the last dozen weeks, the headline initial filers print was below estimates 11 times.
Finally, continuing claims in the week to January 10 were 1.849 million, according to Thursday’s data. That too was well below estimates, counts as a six-week low and was the second-lowest since April of last year.
Fun fact: in 1969, the labor force was about 80 million people. Today it’s around 171 million, making the < 200,000 initial claims that much more remarkable.
When you have to have two or three jobs and they all are ‘freelance’ and gig work, it’s hard to apply for unemployment.
+1 I’ve had the same suspicions. Again, the largest economy is lacking data needed to make better informed decisions. Just too many darts being thrown blindfolded at the target.
Our Dear Leader has agreed that these economic forecasts are laughable:
“New jobs data from the Trump administration showed unemployment benefit claims remaining steady, coming in at 200,000. Those numbers were significantly below the median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists, which called for 209,000.”