The downtrend in unemployment appears intact. Initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 391,000 last week and reversed most of the prior week's increase to 413,000. The earlier week's figure was revised up slightly from 410,000. Consensus expectations had been for 403,000 claims. Claims remained near the lowest since July 2008. During the last ten years there has been a 77% correlation between the level of claims and the m/m change in nonfarm payrolls.

Continuing claims for unemployment insurance also fell to the lowest since October 2008 and the insured unemployment rate fell to 3.0%. These claimants, however, were only about half of the total number of people currently receiving unemployment insurance. Regular extended benefits, with eligibility dependent on conditions in individual states, fell to 761,481 during the week ending February 5 (the latest figure available). A companion program, Emergency Unemployment Compensation, referred to as EUC 2008, saw a reduced 3.685M beneficiaries in the February 5 week (-32.7% y/y).

A grand total of all claimants for unemployment insurance includes extended and emergency programs and specialized programs covering recently discharged veterans, federal employees and those in state-run "workshare" programs. All together, during the February 5th week, the total number of these recipients fell to 9.159M, off 19.6% y/y, but the latest level remained nearly the highest since August. We calculate a broader insured unemployment rate by taking this grand total as a percent of covered employment. The latest rate was 6.0%. It peaked at 9.3% on January 2, 2010.

Two other programs, disaster unemployment assistance (DUA) and trade readjustment allowance (TRA), are reported through a different Labor Department channel. Claimants were the lowest since June in late December. All of these individual program data are not seasonally adjusted.

Data on weekly unemployment insurance programs are contained in Haver's WEEKLY database, including the seasonal factor series, and they are summarized monthly in USECON. Data for individual states, including the unemployment rates that determine individual state eligibility for the extended benefits programs and specific "tiers" of the emergency program, are in REGIONW, a database of weekly data for states and various regional divisions.