Jobless claims, Thursday, February 16, 2023

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Macro Matters

5 minute read February 16, 2023 12:38 PM EST Last Updated a day ago

U.S. labor market still tight; monthly producer inflation accelerates

By Lucia Mutikani

Summary
• Weekly jobless claims fall 1,000 to 194,000
• Continuing claims rise 16,000 to 1.696 million
• Producer prices increase 0.7% in January
• Single-family housing starts drop 4.3%; permits fall 1.8%

WASHINGTON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week, offering more evidence of the economy's resilience despite tighter monetary policy.

Other data on Thursday showed monthly producer prices increasing by the most in seven months in January as the cost of energy products surged. Even stripping out energy and other volatile components, underlying producer inflation rose at its fastest pace since last March.

{snip}

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. From the source:

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/newsreleases/ui-claims/20230324.pdf

https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf

News Release

Connect with DOL at
https://blog.dol.gov

TRANSMISSION OF MATERIALS IN THIS RELEASE IS EMBARGOED UNTIL
8:30 A.M. (Eastern) Thursday, February 16, 2023

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS

SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending February 11, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 194,000, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 1,000 from 196,000 to 195,000. The 4-week moving average was 189,500, an increase of 500 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 250 from 189,250 to 189,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent for the week ending February 4, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised rate. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending February 4 was 1,696,000, an increase of 16,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 8,000 from 1,688,000 to 1,680,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,673,000, an increase of 10,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 2,000 from 1,664,750 to 1,662,750.


UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 224,727 in the week ending February 11, a decrease of 9,280 (or -4.0 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 8,190 (or -3.5 percent) from the previous week. There were 239,812 initial claims in the comparable week in 2022.

{snip}

The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending January 28 was 1,952,795, an increase of 10,109 from the previous week. There were 2,063,573 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2022.

{snip the rest of the nine-page news release, until the end}

Weekly Claims Archives
Weekly Claims Data

U.S. Department of Labor news materials are accessible at http://www.dol.gov. The Department's Reasonable Accommodation Resource Center converts Departmental information and documents into alternative formats, which include Braille and large print. For alternative format requests, please contact the Department at [phone] (voice) or [phone] (federal relay).

U.S. Department of Labor
Employment and Training Administration
Washington, D.C. 20210
Release Number: USDL 23-324-NAT

Program Contacts:
Kevin Stapleton: [phone]
Media Contact: [phone]

[dutch777]

2. Read somewhere that unemployment at 2% or less is actually full employment

The concept being that there are always some number of workers in flux of changing jobs and as long as hiring is robust it is just the time it takes to find the next job that leads to them being technically unemployed for the stats. I would be interested in how many are chronically unemployed or for more than a month. I suspect the further from a major population center the greater the risk of longer term un- or underemployment.