Jobless claims fell yet again last week to 467,000. And on the surface this would be comforting. However, the data are marred by seasonal adjustments. The actual non-adjusted data tell a completely different picture of a deteriorating job market.
Digging beneath the surface one can see that we reached a new business cycle high in both jobless claims (726,420) and continuing claims (5,316,124). States have been overloaded with people applying for unemployment insurance, as Mish recently reported on his blog. In fact, actual continuing claims of 5.3 million are a full 800,000 higher than last week. Even seasonally adjusted continuing claims are at a 26-year high of 4.6 million.
Combining this data with the ADP report released yesterday and you can see the making s of a very ugly jobs report tomorrow. My bogey is for 600,000 jobs lost and an unemployment rate of 7.3%, up from 6.7%.
Source
Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report – Department of Labor