U.S. states posted a much larger-than-expected drop in initial unemployment claims last week, bringing the number of those newly unemployed back toward their pre-virus pace.
The Labor Department released its jobless claims report Thursday morning and here are the main metrics compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Initial unemployment claims, week ended Oct. 9: 293,000 versus 320,000 expected, and a revised 329,000 during the prior week
- Continuing claims, week ended October 2: 2.6 million versus 2.7 million expected, and a revised 2.7 million during prior week.
The latest jobless claims data reflected the smallest number of new filings since March 2020. New weekly jobless claims having been inching closer to their pre-pandemic levels over the past several months, reflecting a slowdown in firings, layoffs and separations as reopenings took place and demand for workers resurged.
“I see this as evidence of a pick-up in employment growth. After all, monthly jobs growth is about the level of hiring less the level of separations,” Neil Dutta, head of economics at Renaissance Macro Research, wrote in an email Thursday morning. “Assuming quits are flat this month as labor supply is released, the drop in claims implies a decline in separations and stronger payrolls.”
Last week’s new jobless claims helped markedly bring down the four-week moving average for initial filings, which smooths out volatility in the weekly data. This metric came in at 334,250 in the latest report, representing a decrease of 10,500 from the prior week’s level. This was also the smallest total since March 2020.
Click here to see the full story from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.
