Weekly Unemployment Claims: Down 1K, Lower Than Expected

This article was originally written by Doug Short. From 2016-2022, it was improved upon and updated by Jill Mislinski. Starting in January 2023, AP Charts pages will be maintained by Jennifer Nash at Advisor Perspectives/VettaFi.

Initial jobless claims measures the number of individual who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time following job loss during the past week. This morning's seasonally adjusted 191,000 new claims, down 1,000 from the previous week's revised figure, came in below the Investing.com forecast of 197,000.

Here is the opening statement from the Department of Labor:

In the week ending March 18, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 191,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 192,000. The 4-week moving average was 196,250, a decrease of 250 from the previous week's unrevised average of 196,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent for the week ending March 11, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 11 was 1,694,000, an increase of 14,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 4,000 from 1,684,000 to 1,680,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,684,000, an increase of 8,500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 1,000 from 1,676,500 to 1,675,500.

Here is a close look at the data since 2007 (with a callout for the past year). The green dots represent each week's initial claims and the purple line represents the four-week moving average which gives a clearer sense of the overall trend. The current four-week moving average is at 196,250, a decrease of 250 from the previous week.

As we can see, there's a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the four-week moving average is a more useful number than the weekly data. Here is the complete data series dating back to 1967.

Outside of the COVID spike, initial unemployment claims have never been greater than 700,000 for a given week. With that said, we've adjusted the y-axis on the chart below so that we can get a zoomed in view of the series where the COVID spike isn't as prominent.

The headline unemployment insurance data is seasonally adjusted, as are the charts above. What does the non-seasonally adjusted data look like? See the chart below, which clearly shows the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data (the green dots). The four-week MA gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change (note, for example, those regular January spikes).

Because of the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, we can add a 52-week moving average to give a better sense of the secular trends. The chart below also has a linear regression through the data (red line), which we are currently below.

For an analysis of unemployment claims as a percent of the labor force, see this regularly updated piece The Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims and the Business Cycle. Here is a snapshot from that analysis.

Here's our complete list of monthly employment updates:

ADP Employment Report

Employment Situation Summary

Labor Market Conditions Index

Long-Term Trends by Age Group

Aging Work Force

Ratio of Part-Time and Full-Time Employment

Multiple Jobholders

Workforce Recovery Since the Recession

Civilian Labor Force, Unemployment Claims, and the Business Cycle

Weekly Unemployment Claims: Down 1K, Lower Than Expected

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