US weekly jobless claims post largest rise in 5 months; labor market still tight

[BumRushDaShow]

Last edited Thu Mar 9, 2023, 02:01 PM - Edit history (2)

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased by the most in five months last week, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a tight labor market. Part of the larger-than-expected rise in claims reported by the Labor Department on Thursday reflected a surge in applications in New York state, which some economists attributed to a mid-winter school recess from Feb. 20-24. There was also a sharp rise in filings in California.

"Even after factoring in the latest increase, jobless claims are exceptionally low by historical standards, underscoring just how tight labor market conditions still are," said Michael Pearce, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics in New York. "It's possible this is an early sign that the spike in announced layoffs is beginning to filter through to some job losses, but not all announced layoffs translate into job cuts."

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 for the week ended March 4. That was the largest increase since October and lifted claims to a two-month high. Still, claims remained well below the 300,000 level, which is associated with a recession.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 195,000 claims for the latest week. The four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out weekly fluctuations, climbed 4,000 to 197,000 last week.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/us-weekly-jobless-claims-rise-more-than-expected-2023-03-09/

---

Took forever for some source to put this up. It's not like it's something that doesn't come out every week.

I know tomorrow's number is probably considered more important I suppose.

From the source -

Link to tweet

[div class"excerpt"]U.S. Department of Labor
@USDOL
·
Follow
Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims

Initial claims were 211,000 for the week ending 3/4 (+21,000).

Insured unemployment was 1,718,000 for the week ending 2/25 (+69,000).

https://dol.gov/ui/data.pdf
8:30 AM · Mar 9, 2023

Article updated.

Previous articles/headlines -

[div class"excerpt"]US weekly jobless claims post largest increase in five months

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased by the most in five months last week, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a tight labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 for the week ended March 4, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was the largest increase since October and lifted claims to a two-month high.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 195,000 claims for the latest week. The four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out weekly fluctuations, climbed 4,000 to 197,000 last week.

"It is not clear that last week's rise is signaling a shift in the trend," said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics in White Plains, New York. "We do expect demand for workers to ease as the effects of restrictive monetary policy take hold and spread more broadly through the economy. But for now, layoffs remain low and job growth is strong, given companies appear to be hoarding workers."


Original article/headline -

[div class"excerpt"]US weekly jobless claims rise more than expected

WASHINGTON, March 9 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits increased more than expected last week, but the underlying trend remained consistent with a tight labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 21,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 for the week ended March 4, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 195,000 claims for the latest week.

Claims had remained below 200,000 for seven straight weeks, indicating that high-profile job cuts in the technology sector had not had a material impact on the labor market.

Data on Wednesday showed there were 1.9 job openings for every unemployed person in January. The Fed's Beige Book described the jobs market as remaining "solid" in February, also noting "scattered reports of layoffs" and that "finding workers with desired skills or experience remained challenging."

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. "Took forever for some source to put this up."

Tell me about it. I was looking and looking. Bloomberg has it too, but I've run out of Bloomberg articles.

Economics
Jobs

US Jobless Claims Jump to 211,000, Led by New York, California

Initial applications surpassed all economists’ estimates

Continuing claims also rose, biggest gain since November 2021

By Mackenzie Hawkins
March 9, 2023, 1:35 PM UTC Updated on March 9, 2023, 1:52 PM UTC

Applications for US unemployment benefits last week rose to the highest since December, driven by spikes in California and New York and suggesting some softening in what’s still a tight labor market.

Initial unemployment claims increased by 21,000 to 211,000 in the week ended March 4, Labor Department data showed Thursday. The figure surpassed all economists’ forecasts. The median estimate was for 195,000 applications.

{snip, as I've hit the paywall}

And good morning.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. I actually sub to Bloomberg

and no one had it up (despite their timestamp) after DOL put it out there until I saw an obscure Sierra Sun-Times (in California for the Yosemite area and other old gold towns) article. I finally did the shift-refreshes of the usual sites (and even included WaPo and NYT) and finally got a Reuters one.

And top of the morning to you!

[House of Roberts]

2. Two major factors are at work here.

The first is 10,000 seniors reach retirement age every day. They don't all retire, but enough are retiring to lower unemployment historically, and that can't be helped.
The second is the Fed is trying its damnedest to force companies to lay off workers and they won't quit until enough people are in crisis that the wealthy can, once again, engorge themselves on distressed assets for pennies on the dollar.

[RussBLib]

3. "bad" news for people, "good" news for the markets

Upside down world. That report moved the markets upward.

Saw Elizabeth Warren ask Fed Chair Powell what he had to say to those millions of Americans that will lose their jobs if the Fed gets what it wants.

Basically, he said it's for the good of the whole.

It's a quandary. How many times have we heard recently that the economy is in uncharted territory? Old rules, old indicators no longer apply. And yet Powell is sticking to his paradigm that the unemployment rate HAS to rise before the Fed relaxes. Are we in a new world, or not?

[doc03]

4. Let's see jobless claims up 21000 from last month, That is bad news

we need to get the unemployment rate up to at least 4.5%.

[progree]

6. The previous week's initial claims was unrevised, the previous insured unemployment revised down 6k

https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

Initial unemployment insurance claims: 211,000 (+21,000 from previous week, previous week unrevised)

Insured employment, aka continuing claims: 1,718k (+69k from previous week, previous week revised down 6k),

Nice graphs at link. The insured employment has been on a rising trend since October, while the initial claims has been on a flat to slightly downward slope. Indicating I guess that it's taking a little longer to find new jobs.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. From the source:

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/newsreleases/ui-claims/20230463.pdf

https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

News Release

Connect with DOL at
https://blog.dol.gov

TRANSMISSION OF MATERIALS IN THIS RELEASE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL
8:30 A.M. (Eastern) Thursday, March 9, 2023

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending March 4, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 211,000, an increase of 21,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 190,000. The 4-week moving average was 197,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's unrevised average of 193,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent for the week ending February 25, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending February 25 was 1,718,000, an increase of 69,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 6,000 from 1,655,000 to 1,649,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,679,500, an increase of 9,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 1,500 from 1,671,500 to 1,670,000.

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 237,513 in the week ending March 4, an increase of 35,357 (or 17.5 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected an increase of 11,791 (or 5.8 percent) from the previous week. There were 219,875 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022.

{snip}

The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending February 18 was 1,920,603, a decrease of 38,441 from the previous week. There were 1,909,028 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2022.

{snip the rest of the nine-page news release, until the end}

Weekly Claims Archives
Weekly Claims Data

U.S. Department of Labor news materials are accessible at http://www.dol.gov. The Department's Reasonable Accommodation Resource Center converts Departmental information and documents into alternative formats, which include Braille and large print. For alternative format requests, please contact the Department at [phone] (voice) or [phone] (federal relay).

U.S. Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration
Washington, D.C. 20210
Release Number: USDL 23-463-NAT

Program Contacts:
Kevin Stapleton: [phone]
Media Contact: [phone]

[area51]

8. Interesting that a labor market can be considered tight

yet there is no upward pressure on wages.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Actually some of the claims have been

that because of the tight market, there is "wage inflation" that is purportedly a driver of the "high inflation" (i.e., we do know that some hourly wages have indeed increased for certain positions).