The Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was released this morning for last week. The 370,000 new claims is unchanged from an upward revision of 3,000 for the previous week. The less volatile and closely watched four-week moving average came in at 375,000. Here is the official statement from the Department of Labor:

In the week ending May 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 370,000, unchanged from the previous week's revised figure of 370,000. The 4-week moving average was 375,000, a decrease of 4,750 from the previous week's revised average of 379,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending May 5, unchanged from the prior week's revised rate.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 5 was 3,265,000, an increase of 18,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,247,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,282,750, a decrease of 11,750 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,294,500.

Today's seasonally adjusted number came in higher than the Briefing.com consensus estimate of 365K.

As we can see, there's a good bit of volatility in this indicator, which is why the 4-week moving average (shown in the callouts) is a more useful number than the weekly data.

 

 

Occasionally I see articles critical of seasonal adjustment, especially when the non-adjusted number better suits the author's bias. But a comparison of these two charts clearly shows extreme volatility of the non-adjusted data, and the 4-week MA gives an indication of the recurring pattern of seasonal change in the second chart (note, for example, those regular January spikes).

 

 

Because of the extreme volatility of the non-adjusted weekly data, a 52-week moving average gives a better sense of the long-term trends. This metric has now fallen below 400,000 for the first time since late November 2008. I've now added a linear regression through the data. We can see that this metric has started to slip below the long-term trend stretching back to 1968.

 

 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics provides an overview on seasonal adjustment here (scroll down about half way down). For more specific insight into the adjustment method, check out the BLS Seasonal Adjustment Files and Documentation.

For a broader view of unemployment, see the latest update in my monthly series Unemployment and the Market Since 1948.