Initial jobless claims increase

01-11-2010 12:10

The number of initial jobless claims rose in the previous week. However, the statistic stayed close to the lowest level in more than twelve months and exceeded economists’ expectations. The United States Department of Labor announced today that the number of people filing for first-time unemployment help increased to 434.000 for the week that ended on January 2, in comparison to the previous week that showed a revised total of 433.000.

Initial jobless claims

Before last week’s improvement, claims had dropped in seven of the preceding nine weeks. The economists’ forecasts were slightly higher as claims fell to the lowest level in more than twelve months in the final week of last year.
The four-week moving average for first-time claims, an indicator that eliminates weekly movements in the figures, fell 10.250 to 450.250. This implicates that the pattern en general for first-time claims has a downward character.

Unemployment

Continuing claims, an indicator that gauges the number of US citizens receiving continuously unemployment support, edged down 179.000 to 4.802 million. This is the lowest level since the end of January last year.

Employment data

Friday’s month-by-month employment data are now in the spotlights. These figures, by a lot of people regarded as key economic data, will be released at 8:30 am Eastern Time.
Most economists believe that Friday’s figures will demonstrate another month of moderate job losses. November’s payroll data showed a decline of 11.000. Nevertheless, there are signs that December’s figures will show growth again.

Industry report

Concerning the government data, an important industry report was published last Wednesday, demonstrating that job losses in the private sector weakened in December.
Data published by Automatic Data Processing (ADP) proved that the private sector lost 84.000 jobs last month, while November showed a revised decline of 145.000 jobs.