Jobless claims at pre-recession levels
Courtesy of Sober Look
US initial jobless claims continue to surprise. The error from last week (due to systems conversion problems in California and Nevada) has supposedly been corrected. And the adjustment is only two thousand claims. It means that last week's number would have been the lowest in at least a decade for this time of year (without the seasonal adjustments).
|
| Source: Econoday |
Just to put this in perspective, here is what the current trajectory of initial claims looks like relative to the post-recession years. Once again, in order to avoid uncertainties related to seasonal adjustments, let's take the approach that energy analysts have relied on for years. We plot the unadjusted claims with full seasonality by year.
Unless the labor department still has some systems problems, the decline in claims is consistent with previous years and is at another post-recession low. Furthermore, the claims path is now well within the pre-recession levels.
Clearly this does not tell us much about individuals who no longer qualify to file for unemployment as well as the massive under-employed and poorly paid groups. But as far as this metric is concerned, we've returned to a more "normal" level.
