Initial Unemployment Claims: 377K SA (Up 21K From Last Week’s Hokey Number), 414K NSA (Down 15% Year-Over-Year)
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA
In the week ending January 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 377,000, an increase of 21,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 356,000. The 4-week moving average was 377,500, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 380,000.
… UNADJUSTED DATA
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 414,122 in the week ending January 21, a decrease of 112,817 from the previous week. There were 485,950 initial claims in the comparable week in 2011.
Today’s number shows that last week’s number was indeed artificially low. After next week’s revision, this week will likely be about 380,000. Recall that if last week’s number had been seasonally adjusted using the same factor as the analogous week from a year ago, seasonally adjusted claims would have been 394,000. So today’s number, after revision, was actually a bit of an improvement over last week.
