As I cautioned last weekend in my “Weekly Indicators” update, we have entered that period of the year where Holiday seasonality means take everything with at least a little grain of salt. For example, this year Thanksgiving was almost one full week later than lat year.With that caveat, initial jobless claims for Thanksgiving week this year increased 9,000 to 224,000. The four week moving average increased 750 to 218,250. Continuing claims, with the typical one week lag, declined -25,000 to 1.871 million:
As per usual, the YoY% changes are more important for forecasting purposes. So measured, initial claims were up 3.7%, the four week average up 0.3%, and continuing claims up 2.9%:
On the face of it, these comparisons are a little weak, since they are all higher YoY, but not nearly enough to warrant any special concern. Still, take even that statement with a little extra caution because of seasonality.Looking at tomorrow’s unemployment rate for November, the suggestion is that absent the impact of immigration unemployment should be in the area of flat to 5% (as a percent of a percent, left scale) higher than one year ago. Since, per the gray line (right scale) which shows the actual unemployment rate, one year ago was 3.7% in November, that means trending towards an unemployment rate of 3.7%-4.0%:
This is all neutral – with a grain of extra salt.More By This Author:ISM Non-Manufacturing Shows That Services Continue To Power The Economy Forward JOLTS Report For October ISM Manufacturing Remains Weak
