Very quick here The initial jobless claims number released this morning of 712,000 was well below expectations for 775,000. And it was also well below last week's upwardly revised figure of 787,000. That's very good news. But it is just one week's data. And it is also data that will have been greatly affected by the Thanksgiving holiday. So, unfortunately we can't read too much into the data release. My base case is still for a double dip in the US, with rising initial claims a principal cause.
Well, given how screwed up the claims numbers apparently are, it's kind of hard to really know where that trend is going. The continuing claims number mostly aligns with the employment picture, but again, because the UE rate is from the household survey, guessing on that is not easy. With employment 10mil under the peak pre-covid, the 7% UE rate is way too low, but that is simply due to the sharp drop in participation. Without that, we'd be around 10% UE. It is likely now that more schools are going virtual, and more people are avoiding being in public, that participation has dropped again, so we might see the jobless rate fall even with no net job gains or a slight decline. 2020 is the year of messed up data (just wait til we have a look at the Census next year!)
Good claims number. Now awaiting the jobs figure
Well, given how screwed up the claims numbers apparently are, it's kind of hard to really know where that trend is going. The continuing claims number mostly aligns with the employment picture, but again, because the UE rate is from the household survey, guessing on that is not easy. With employment 10mil under the peak pre-covid, the 7% UE rate is way too low, but that is simply due to the sharp drop in participation. Without that, we'd be around 10% UE. It is likely now that more schools are going virtual, and more people are avoiding being in public, that participation has dropped again, so we might see the jobless rate fall even with no net job gains or a slight decline. 2020 is the year of messed up data (just wait til we have a look at the Census next year!)