After unexpectedly rising in the prior week (perhaps due to Hurricane Ida’s impact), analysts expected jobless claims to drop back to post-COVID lows last week – but they were very wrong as 351k Americans filed for first-time jobless claims (way worse than the 320k expected). That is the highest in 7 weeks…
Source: Bloomberg
California dominated the states seeing the biggest rise in jobless claims, while Louisiana saw the biggest drop…
Additionally, continuing claims jumped from 2.665mm to 2.845mm (also well above expectations of a drop to 2.60mm).
On the bright side, over 700,000 Americans left the pandemic emergency benefits roles…
But, there are still over 11 million Americans on some form of government dole…
Source: Bloomberg
Finally, we note that this week was the September non-farm-payrolls survey period, so that may bode ill for the jobs data (that admittedly Powell has somewhat played down in importance with regard to the taper decision).
