Here is the opening statement from the Department of Labor:
Note: This week’s release reflects the annual revision to the weekly unemployment claims seasonal adjustment factors. The seasonal adjustment factors used for the UI Weekly Claims data from 2013 forward, along with the resulting seasonally adjusted values for initial claims and continuing claims, have been revised.
In the week ending March 24, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 215,000, a decrease of 12,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This is the lowest level for initial claims since January 27, 1973 when it was 214,000. The previous week’s level was revised down by 2,000 from 229,000 to 227,000. The 4-week moving average was 224,500, a decrease of 500 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 1,250 from 223,750 to 225,000.
Claims taking procedures in Puerto Rico and in the Virgin Islands have still not returned to normal. [See full report]
Friday’s seasonally adjusted 215K new claims, down 12K from the previous week’s figure, was below the Investing.com forecast of 230K.
Here is a close look at the data over the decade (with a callout for the past year), which gives a clearer sense of the overall trend in relation to the last recession.
As we can see, there’s a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week moving average (the highlighted number) is a more useful number than the weekly data. Here is the complete data series.
The headline Unemployment Insurance data is seasonally adjusted. What does the non-seasonally adjusted data look like? See the chart below, which clearly shows the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data (the red dots). The 4-week MA gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change (note, for example, those regular January spikes).
