Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Jump 16,000 to 357,000

The seasonal adjustment factors used for the Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims data from 2008 forward, along with the resulting seasonally adjusted values for initial claims and continuing claims, have been revised.

As such, recent weeks' jobless claims figures have been revised higher. The Department of Labor reported no other unusual factors, and no state's claims were estimated this week. Even so, we saw a large jump in jobless claims in the past week, though the weekly figures can and do bounce around a bit. In the week ending March 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 357,000, an increase of 16,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 341,000.

This was the highest level in more than a month. (Last week's claims were previously reported to be 332,000.) Economists had expected 340,000 new unemployment claims. Because weekly figures can be volatile, analysts often prefer the 4-week moving average. In that regard, the 4-week moving average was 343,000, an increase of 2,250 from the previous week's revised average of 340,750, which was the lowest in five years.

This week's bounce higher does not necessarily point to a change in the trend for stabilizing jobless claims, at least based on data received in recent weeks. For continuing claims, the advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 16 was 3,050,000, a decrease of 27,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,077,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,072,500, a decrease of 13,000 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,085,500. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent during the week ending March 16, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate. Adding in extended and emergency unemployment benefits, the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending March 9 (these data are reported with a lag) was 5,455,757, an increase of 86,750 from the previous week. There were 7,158,470 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012. Because unemployed workers may no longer qualify for benefits due to ending their job search, whether they are discouraged, go back to school or decide to attend to family obligations, or may see their benefits expire, ongoing claims may not necessarily tell us the direction of the non-farm payroll report figures.

Because the benchmark week for the Bureau of Labor Statistics' twin surveys for the Employment Situation report (a.k.a. non-farm payrolls) is the week that includes the 12th of each month, these figures are after those that will go into compiling the payrolls report next week. The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending March 9 were in Alaska (5.8 percent), Puerto Rico (4.5), Rhode Island (4.1), New Jersey (4.0), Connecticut (3.9), Montana (3.9), Pennsylvania (3.9), Wisconsin (3.8), California (3.7), and Massachusetts (3.7). The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending March 16 were in California (+3,007), Virginia (+1,165), Mississippi (+485), North Dakota (+54), and Puerto Rico (+38), while the largest decreases were in Pennsylvania (-2,497), New York (-2,116), Georgia (-2,023), North Carolina (-1,340), and Ohio (-1,192).