Jobless Claims: Claims Fall, Below 750k

November 12, 2020
Bottom Line: Jobless claims fell last week, falling below 750k for the first time since the pandemic. Increases in the States of Washington and California kept the tally from falling below 700k. For the most part, these appear to be one-off anomalies. We noted last week that our forecast from our Nowcasting model suggested claims could fall below 700k, but Friday and Saturday saw more activity, pushing the forecast back above 700k, in-line with the reported unadjusted result of 723k. This week's model, to be reported next Thursday, suggests claims may hold over 700k, rebounding just slightly. Overall, claims are still heading in the right direction but proving stubborn around the current levels, and bear watching for signs that labor market improvement may be stalling. Jobless Claims FELL by 48k during the week ended November 7th to 709k, compared with market expectations for an increase to 731k. The 4-week average FELL by 33.3k to 755k and the 13-week average FELL by 20.2k to 855k. Continuing Claims FELL by 436k during the week ended October 31st to 6,786k after the prior week was revised moderately lower from 13,385k to 7,222k. The 4-week average FELL by 653k to 7,576k. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, Continuing Claims FELL by 402k to 6,486k during the week ended October 24th. The Insured Jobless Rate FELL by 0.3% to 4.6% during the week ended October 31st. The insured jobless rate only reflects the number of people collecting regular state unemployment insurance.