This past week, jobless claims settled in at a level near 600,000 after a few weeks of decline due largely to seasonal adjustments. Jobless claims were 589,000 while continuing claims were 4,607,000.
Year-on-year changes in average continuing claims and initial claims are a very good indicator of the health of the job market. I have begun to track the change in claims using only unadjusted data due to distortions from seasonal adjustments. For example, the year-on-year numbers show an increase of 295,000 and rising for the raw numbers and only 192,000 and falling for the adjusted numbers.
In the charts below, you can see that the unadjusted comparisons are deteriorating. I am expecting to see a significant rise of more than 500,000 in unemployment, when the unemployment figures come out early next month.
Source
Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report – U.S. Department of Labor