Via Bloomberg:
Claims continue to pile up due to special administrative factors. Initial jobless claims jumped for a second week, up 24,000 in the April 10 week to 484,000. The four-week average is up 7,500 to 457,750 but is still a bit below the month-ago level. Continuing claims for the April 3 week rose 73,000 to 4.639 million, a level that is also the four-week average. Here too, the four-week average is a bit below the month-ago comparison.
The Labor Department attributes the rise in claims not to economic factors but to continuing administrative snags as offices catch up with claims during the shortened Easter week and, in California, for the Cesar Chavez holiday. The department is warning the next report may be affected by quarter-end reclassifications for emergency compensation, but that the chances for downward revisions are greater than for upward revisions.
Given all the noise in the data, expectations are likely to hold for a big gain in April payrolls, at least for now. Equities and commodities fell but only briefly in initial reaction to today's report.
It seems like every week there is a new excuse as to why the numbers are out of line on the high side and low side. I hope the large increase in claims is not attributable to economic factors as this report suggests.
Patrick M. Ambrus
Managing Partner
Analyze Capital LLC
ambrus.anlzgroup@gmail.com
hmmm, well, we could try figure it out, looking industry/sector by industry/sector!
ReplyDeleteThat's pretty bad that the Labor Department can produce data like that, its funny how so many people take these numbers for actual fact...