Weekly Unemployment Claims Continue Decline

Claims continue to slowly decline. Weekly claims for unemployment have declined by about 23,000 per month, on average, since peaking at the end of March. If progress slows a bit going forward, as it usually does in the first year after the end of a recession, then claims might reach 400,000 per month in about six months. Coming out of the 2001 recession, that was the point at which the unemployment rate began to decline. So politicians could be very nervous for many more months, since we are not likely to see any significant improvement in the unemployment rate until the second quarter of next year at the earliest, if these trends continue.

Comments

[Old Trader:]

Given that the US needs something on the order of PLUS 250K jobs, just to stay "even" with labor market growth, I'd say there's still a ways to go yet before breaking out the party hats.

Nov 06 11:31 PM