U.S. jobless claims fall to match lowest level since 1973

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: MarketWatch, aka Dow Jones

U.S. jobless claims fall to match lowest level since 1973

Published: Apr 14, 2016 9:03 a.m. ET

Layoffs running at lowest level since early 1970s

By Jeffry Bartash
Reporter

The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits last week fell by 13,000 to 253,000, matching the lowest mark since the end of the Great Recession and sinking to a level last seen in 1973.

Economists polled by the MarketWatch had predicted initial jobless claims would total a seasonally adjusted 270,000 in the seven days stretching from April 3 to April 9.

The U.S. has generated millions of jobs over the past five years, putting many Americans back to work and keeping the economy on a slow but stable growth path in the wake of the devastating 2007-2009 downturn.

Many companies these days are not only reluctant to part with current employees, they complain it’s harder to find enough qualified people to fill open positions.

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/us-jobless-claims-fall-13000-to-253000-2016-04-14

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Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report

News Release
Connect with DOL at http://blog.dol.gov

TRANSMISSION OF MATERIALS IN THIS RELEASE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL
8:30 A.M. (Eastern) Thursday, April 14, 2016

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending April 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 253,000, a decrease of 13,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 1,000 from 267,000 to 266,000. The 4-week moving average was 265,000, a decrease of 1,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 250 from 266,750 to 266,500.

[onehandle]

1. My company has been doing nothing but hiring for months.

And my industry is a bellwether for job growth.

And yet like the GOP, The 'Not Hillary' Party is preaching gloom and doom.

[enlightenment]

5. What industry might that be?

And what does this have to do with the "not Hillary" (i.e., Sanders) people preaching doom and gloom?

This OP was a simple report showing initial claims are down. That could be due to increased hiring, or it could be that still-unemployed people are running out of benefits, particularly since extensions are gone; or that some unemployed people cannot claim because of state/federal rules governing their ability to do so. To suggest that there are additional reasons beyond increased hiring isn't doom and gloom - it's rational thought, particularly so when the feds have an interesting way of revising positive numbers down a few weeks after the initial reports.

I'm glad your company is doing well, but offering it up without any details as to what kind of work it might be is not a valid argument - and the rest of your comment is an undisguised slam without substance.

[hobbit709]

2. Some people don't file since they aren't eligible for one reason or another.

[underpants]

4. Unemployment is historically overstated right now

Until Obama got unemployment extended to 98 weeks it has always been 52 weeks. That means people can make claims much longer.

[closeupready]

8. Wrong. Unemployment lasts 26 weeks normally.

Just a correction.

[underpants]

10. Thanks. I was doing it from memory.

[underpants]

3. It's that damned Obamacare I tells ya

[Botany]

6. kenyan socialist

underpants

[Democat]

7. Obama's fault!

Impeach him.

[winstars]

12. Yeah, THANKS OBAMA!!!

[whatthehey]

9. Just once I'd like to see a thread on this metric

without people confidently pontificating about the imapct of benefit expiration on it, since the two are completely and utterly disconnected. This is a measure of INITIAL claims. People were working but now are laid off anf STARTING a claim.

As far as eligibility to file goes, there are variations but few people who worked a FT job and lost it through no fault or choice of their own are ineligible. Sure if you were making a bunch last year, then lost that job, found a new one a few weeks ago but then also got laid off from that one, earnings rules might crop up, but that's neither the norm nor a recent change so a monthly datum like this can still be accurately compared to previous data points in the same series.

[underpants]

11. You are correct

My post above was completely wrong but I will leave it to mark my shame.

[whatthehey]

13. Trust me no personal sleight intended - the frustration is precisely because of its universality

Just seems to be one of those things a huge number of people have in their head. Same goes with UE rates not counting those without benefits (also completely false, the survey doesn't even ask) and BLS median pay data being skewed by CEOs (the metric uses median not mean precisely to avoid that impact, small though it would be given the small number of CEOs). The whole labor market data set is generally treated even by most well-intentioned laypeople as if the stat gurus and policy wonks at the DOL in the decades they've been doing this never thought about the proper measures to use.

[Odin2005]

14. And most of the jobs are low-paying shit jobs.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

15. Stress reduction kit