Global| May 14 2009U.S. Initial Weekly Claims For Jobless Insurance Rebound But Still Trending Lower
by:Tom Moeller
|in:Economy in Brief
Summary
A stutter-step was taken by the U.S. job market last week. Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased 32,000 to 637,000 and that recovered all of the prior week's decline. Nevertheless, claims remained down sharply from their [...]
A stutter-step was taken by the U.S. job market last week. Initial claims for unemployment insurance increased 32,000 to 637,000 and that recovered all of the prior week's decline. Nevertheless, claims remained down sharply from their March high of 674,000. The four-week average of claims, which smoothes out some of the volatility in the weekly numbers, ticked up to 630,500, still near the lowest level since mid-February. Initial claims of 610,000 was the Consensus expectation for claims last week.
The Labor Department indicated that the largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 2 were in Illinois (+2,052), Kansas (+2,025), Puerto Rico (+1,781), Indiana (+1,051), and Ohio (+1,013), while the largest decreases were in New York (-13,386), Michigan (-10,952), North Carolina (-8,988), Massachusetts (-3,705), and Connecticut (-2,802).
Layoffs may have eased, but the pace of rehiring of unemployed workers remains depressed. Continuing claims for unemployment insurance increased again to another record high of 6,560,000 and they remain twice the year ago level. The series dates back to 1966. The four-week average of continuing claims also rose to another record of 6,337,250. Continuing claims provide some indication of workers' ability to find employment and they lag the initial claims figures by one week.
The lack of hiring continued to push the insured unemployment rate higher to 4.9%. That level was more than double last April and the highest level since 1983. During the last ten years there has been a 93% correlation between the level of the insured unemployment rate and the overall rate of unemployment published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Clearly, the latest weekly figure understates labor market distress in some states. The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending April 25 were in Michigan (7.8 percent), Oregon (7.5), Pennsylvania (6.5), Wisconsin (6.4), Nevada (6.3), Idaho (6.1), Puerto Rico (5.9), Vermont (5.8), Alaska (5.7), and Rhode Island (5.7).
The unemployment insurance claim data is available in Haver's WEEKLY database.
Comparing patterns of default among prime and subprime mortgages from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago is available here.
| Unemployment Insurance (000s) | 05/09/09 | 05/02/09 | 04/25/09 | Y/Y | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Initial Claims | 637 | 635 | 635 | 69.9% | 420 | 321 | 313 |
| Continuing Claims | -- | 6,560 | 6,358 | 114.2% | 3,342 | 2,552 | 2,459 |
Tom Moeller
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Prior to joining Haver Analytics in 2000, Mr. Moeller worked as the Economist at Chancellor Capital Management from 1985 to 1999. There, he developed comprehensive economic forecasts and interpreted economic data for equity and fixed income portfolio managers. Also at Chancellor, Mr. Moeller worked as an equity analyst and was responsible for researching and rating companies in the economically sensitive automobile and housing industries for investment in Chancellor’s equity portfolio. Prior to joining Chancellor, Mr. Moeller was an Economist at Citibank from 1979 to 1984. He also analyzed pricing behavior in the metals industry for the Council on Wage and Price Stability in Washington, D.C. In 1999, Mr. Moeller received the award for most accurate forecast from the Forecasters' Club of New York. From 1990 to 1992 he was President of the New York Association for Business Economists. Mr. Moeller earned an M.B.A. in Finance from Fordham University, where he graduated in 1987. He holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from George Washington University.
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