The Department of Labor has announced its weekly estimate of unemployment claims:
In the week ending July 3, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 454,000, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 475,000. The 4-week moving average was 466,000, a decrease of 1,250 from the previous week’s revised average of 467,250.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.4 percent for the week ending June 26, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.6 percent.
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 26 was 4,413,000, a decrease of 224,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,637,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,554,000, a decrease of 18,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,572,750.
The fiscal year-to-date average of seasonally adjusted weekly insured unemployment, which corresponds to the appropriated AWIU trigger, was 5.064 million.
While fewer is certainly better than more this is hardly the stuff of a robust recovery. It’s essentially unchanged, obviously within the margin of error and when yesterday analysts were saying that they were looking for a number around 400,000 this has got to be a disappointment.
There were large increases in the number of claims in New Jersey (7,951), Massachusetts (4,681), and New York (3,473) with additional layoffs in construction being cited as among the reasons for the change.
