Jobless Claims: Steady Ahead of Holidays

Bottom Line: After several weeks of difficult seasonal adjustments, both seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted claims were nearly unchanged last week. The trend remains in the direction of improvement, albeit very slowly now, as the rate of claims has almost returned to pre-pandemic levels in the 200-250k range. The four-week average remains below the 13-week average. Finally, our Nowcast model, which only uses non-seasonally adjusted data, suggests claims may have edged up again this week. While we expect no significant change in trend, we could see a modest increase in the new year as applications for benefits get processed.Initial Jobless Claims were nearly unchanged in the week ended December 18th to 205k, BELOW the 4-week average of 206k, BELOW the 13-week average of 261k, and 598k BELOW the year-ago level. Claims for the 11th of Dec were revised down from +206k to +205k. Non-seasonally adjusted Claims FELL slightly, DOWN 11.7k to 254k.

Continuing Claims were nearly unchanged in the week ended December 11th,  8k to 1.86M, BELOW the 4-week average of 1.92M, BELOW the 13-week average of 2.23M and 3.57M BELOW the year-ago level. Continuing Claims for the 4th of Dec were revised up from +1.84M to +1.87M.The Insured Jobless Rate was nearly unchanged in the week ended December 11th at 1.4%. The insured jobless rate only reflects the number of people collecting regular state unemployment insurance.