Jobless claims: Another 709,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: Yahoo! Finance

Jobless claims: Another 709,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week

Emily McCormick·Reporter
Thu, November 12, 2020, 8:33 AM EST

Another 709,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, marking another modest improvement in the number of those newly unemployed even as coronavirus cases in the U.S. continue to creep higher.

The Department of Labor released its weekly report on new jobless claims Thursday morning at 8:30 a.m. ET. Here were the main results from the report, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:

-- Initial jobless claims, week ended Nov. 7: 709,000 vs. 731,000 expected and a revised 757,000 during prior week

-- Continuing claims, week ended Oct. 31: 6.786 million vs. 6.825 million expected and a revised 7.222 million during prior week

The Labor Department report showed an eleventh straight week that new jobless claims totaled below 1 million. But new claims have not yet broken back below 700,000 since the start of the pandemic and have held sharply above levels from before the outbreak. Throughout 2019, new initial unemployment claims were coming in at an average of just over 200,000 per week.

Most U.S. states reported declines in unadjusted new claims last week, led by Georgia with a drop of more than 14,000 initial claims. States grappling with rising new COVID-19 cases including Texas, New Jersey, Kentucky and Florida also reported notable decreases in their numbers of new claims. Washington state, on the other hand, saw the biggest leap last week, with new claims rising by more than 10,000.

{snip}

Read more: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/initial-jobless-claims-week-ended-nov-7-2020-coronavirus-pandemic-191217224.html

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

1. As Trump and McConnell fiddle, the United States of America burns. nt

[mahatmakanejeeves]

2. From the source:

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, November 12, 2020

UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS
SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending November 7, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 709,000, a decrease of 48,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up by 6,000 from 751,000 to 757,000. The 4-week moving average was 755,250, a decrease of 33,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 1,500 from 787,000 to 788,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.6 percent for the week ending October 31, a decrease of 0.3 percentage point from the previous week's revised rate. The previous week's rate was revised down by 0.1 from 5.0 to 4.9 percent. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending October 31 was 6,786,000, a decrease of 436,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 63,000 from 7,285,000 to 7,222,000. The 4-week moving average was 7,575,750, a decrease of 653,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 15,750 from 8,244,500 to 8,228,750.

{snip}

UNADJUSTED DATA

{snip. Emphasis mine}

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending October 24 was 21,157,111, a decrease of 374,179 from the previous week. There were 1,449,519 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2019.

{snip the rest of the twelve-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 20-2118-NAT

Program Contacts:
Thomas Stengle: [phone]
Media Contact: [phone]

[essaynnc]

3. OK, I'm confused.....

I see a horrible report like this on unemployment, then I see the new jobs figures that come out, and "holy crap !!!!", look at how great the economy is doing, unemployment is down!!! Whoopie!

So THEY say.

I guess we can have both, if the job creation is a net number, but that seems unrealistic based on loosing 3/4 of a million jobs in a week and the precarious state of the anemic Covid pandemic economy....

Can someone explain? Thanks.

[progree]

5. The numbers r getting better but they still way suck

I'm. " away" so can't research the numbers but there is also a big big unexplained difference between the monthly BLS unemployment level and the 21 million claims in all programs for unemployment insurance benefits reported above. Yeah, there are reasons for some of that, but haven't heard a good explanation for most of it.

[progree]

6. There is also the monthly JOLTS report of hirings and separations

that enumerate the two and more, and yes there is a lot of layoffs and a lot of hirings.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. I posted the most recent JOLTS this morning, in the Economy Group.

I suspect you've seen it, but for the benefit of the others:

BLS Report: Job openings (6.4 million), hires, and separations little changed in September

[progree]

11. Thanks for that 😃 I see it says hires is 5.9 M and Separations 4.7 M. A lot of churn for a month nt

[ffr]

4. JC, that's 2008 levels. Elect a republican, expect to get laid off.

[NoMoreRepugs]

7. 709k new claims vs how many that dropped off the rolls cuz benefits expired?

To think things are improving is absurd.

[cheezmaka]

9. And what does Trump continue to do...

Contest the vote count in PA, NV, AZ, GA, and Play GOLF....

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. So much winning!!!!!!