- Prior week
- The initial jobless claims for the week ending May 27 were 232,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised level of 230,000.
- The 4-week moving average of initial jobless claims decreased by 2,500 to 229,500.
- The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2% for the week ending May 20, unchanged from the previous week's rate.
- The continuing claims during the week ending May 20 was 1,795,000, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level of 1,789,000.
- The 4-week moving average of continuing claims was 1,797,500, a decrease of 1,500 from the previous week's revised average of 1,799,000.
- The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 20 were in Texas (+2,808), Connecticut (+2,091), Iowa (+621), Pennsylvania (+540), and Missouri (+324),
- The largest decreases were in Massachusetts (-2,127), Michigan (-1,024), Illinois (-1,000), New York (-625), and Oregon (-565).
The initial jobless claims moved sideways but more to the downside indicative of a steady but "not falling out of bed" jobs market. Continuing claims are remaining below the 1.8 million level and are dipping more to the downside also indicative of improvement and an indication that people losing jobs, are not staying unemployed for long.
Dow futures are negative now at -35.27 points. S&P index is still up around 5 points and the NASDAQ index is still higher by around 16 points. All are off earlier US levels.
Later today we get the ISM manufacturing data. The employment component is expected to dip back below the 50.0 level to 49.8. Given the ADP and the initial jobless claims will that dip below the 50 level? BLS releases there monthly employment statistics tomorrow at 8:30 AM ET. Estimates are around 193K but are probably tilting more to the upside.