Weekly jobless claims moderated for the third consecutive week, coming in below forecasts and bolstering optimism that September’s employment report could see significant improvement compared to August.
In the week ending Sept. 19 there were 530,000 new filings for jobless benefits ― the lowest number since July 11. That’s 21,000 fewer than the prior week’s upwardly revised figure of 551,000. Forecasts were for 550k claims.
“This was better than the market consensus for a print of 550K, though we do suspect that some of the improvement continues be a result of seasonal factors playing catch-up due to the later than usual Labour Day holiday,” said Ian Pollick from TD.
In the broader picture, few will be encouraged by the report. Weekly claims need to be in a range closer to 370k to indicate stabilization in the labor market. Still, three weeks of moderation have pushed the 4-week average to 553,500, a pretty good improvement from the 569k average in August.
“The trend in initial claims is decidedly downward,” said analysts from BMO.
In addition, the number of people continuing to receive benefits was scaled back by 123,000 to 6.138 million. That helped the insured unemployment rate slide one-tenth to 4.6%.
Other Details:
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Sept. 5 were in Puerto Rico (6.7 percent ), Oregon (5.6), Nevada (5.4), Pennsylvania (5.4), Michigan (5.2), Wisconsin (4.9), California (4.8), New Jersey (4.8), Connecticut (4.7), North Carolina (4.7), and South Carolina (4.7).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Sept. 12 were in Wisconsin (+1,573), Oregon (+829), and Kansas(+677), while the largest decreases were in Texas (-4,623), Illinois (-4,217), Pennsylvania (-3,961), Michigan (-3,012), and Massachusetts (-2,389).