Thursday, March 29, 2012

Unemployment claims continue to decline


At first glance, weekly claims for unemployment came in higher than expected, but that was entirely due to revisions to seasonal adjustment factors. After the revisions, claims fell to their lowest level in several years. On an unadjusted basis, claims are down 10.5% from year-ago levels and have been on a clear downtrend since April 2009. No news here, it's steady as she goes: fewer and fewer workers are being laid off, and this is a good sign that the economy has undergone a lot of painful adjustments and is thus healing itself from within. It's all part of the natural recovery forces which I discussed in yesterday's post.

5 comments:

brodero said...

Follow the 52 week moving average of
NSA jobless claims... dropped another 661 to 395,080....no recession

Anonymous said...

I've noticed Doug Short has recently started charting the 52-week moving average of unadjusted claims.
Bottom chart

Benjamin Cole said...

I am not satisfied with such slow growth out of the worst recession since the Great Depressiojn.

DC is profligate, but anyone would run big deficits ink thus slo-go economy. This is awful.

The Fed should be far more aggressive in spurring growth.

We are mumbling like Japan. The United States of Nippon. W are even keeping hard-working immigrants out, like Japan.

brodero said...

Doug Short got the idea from me.

Anonymous said...

"Doug Short got the idea from me."

Wouldn't be surprised.