If you lose a job, it is increasingly difficult to find one.
Today, the US Department of Labor released Unemployment Claims for the week ending June 28.
Initial Unemployment Claims
- In the week ending June 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 233,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised up by 1,000 from 236,000 to 237,000.
- The 4-week moving average was 241,500, a decrease of 3,750 from the previous week’s revised average. The previous week’s average was revised up by 250 from 245,000 to 245,250.
Continued Claims
- The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 21 was 1,964,000, unchanged from the previous week’s revised level. The previous week’s level was revised down by 10,000 from 1,974,000 to 1,964,000.
- The 4-week moving average was 1,954,000, an increase of 15,500 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the highest level for this average since November 20, 2021 when it was 2,004,250. The previous week’s average was revised down by 2,500 from 1,941,000 to 1,938,500.
Initial Claims and 4-Week Average
Change in Continued Unemployment Claims
I do not have a satisfactory explanation for 24 straight weeks of alternating up-down changes in continued claims. It’s unprecedented. I suppose it could be a random fluke albeit with an amazingly small likelihood.
For whatever reason or none at all, the pattern broke seven weeks ago, but has since continued, but with a second miss today (no decline).
The alternating bounces (decline in continued continued claims) are getting weaker and weaker.
Final Thoughts
Tariffs and tariff uncertainty have now started to bite. Small businesses will be the ones most impacted.
Trump won an extended stay on reciprocal tariffs through July 31. And in early, July Trump said he will announce deals.
Also, Trump has recently increased tariffs on steel and aluminum. All of these actions and events are guaranteed job killers.
Expect a surge in unemployment claims.
However, BLS data and methods are so poor, it’s hard to say when this turns up in the jobs reports.
QCEW Report Shows Overstatement of Jobs
On June 16, I commented QCEW Report Shows Overstatement of Jobs by the BLS is Increasing
The discrepancy between QCEW and the BLS jobs report is rising.
Related Posts
Yesterday, I noted ADP Reports 33,000 Job Losses in June with Negative Revisions in May
Small and medium-sized businesses shed jobs in June.
Today I noted Jobs Beat Expectations, Up 147,000 in June, but Government Jobs Rise 73,000
Government to the rescue?
“It’s unprecedented.”
Like so many other things since Covid.
Perhaps these are the people who don’t know how to use AI for job search?
Maybe people are not telling the truth on employment surveys. Continuing unemployment is difficult corrupt.
This dovetails nicely with the Medicaid work requirement. Find a job, or die. This will make the workforce appropriately docile and compliant.
Work or die used to be the definition of slavery. I guess we’ll still have the option of getting shipped off to ICE camp if we exhibit signs of Wrong Think.
Tariffs are up considerably since Liberation day yet we have not seen the promised inflation nor recession. The time they are supposed to happen keeps getting put off further and further into the future.Perhaps we must consider neither will happen.
Personally, I haven’t run across a single made in China item that I’ve bought since early April that I can say costs more due to tariffs. Granted, if this 90-day cooling off period gets lifted, then my story may change by September.
Personally, I don’t think Trump & his administration are going to let tariff related inflation rise to any great extent. They know as well as anyone that it will keep the Fed from lowering rates & possibly might force them to increase the FFR.
Through June at least, it seems to have been a lot of echo chamber noise.
“I do not have a satisfactory explanation for 24 straight weeks of alternating up-down changes in continued claims.”
On net, I would consider this to be a positive data point. It clearly suggests, in general, that workers are finding new work. We are approaching 16 years since the last REAL recession. That’s unprecedented, with all of the recessions dating back to the mid 1970’s.
I don’t see any real cracks starting to form. Now, if this continued claims data makes a slow turn north, then that’s probably going to be an early indicator of real cracks forming. For that to happen, there has to be a notable sustained uptick with layoffs.
The correct paradigm is the 1966 Interest Rate Adjustment Act. You drive the banks out of the savings business (which doesn’t reduce the size of the overall payment’s system), thereby reducing long-term interest rates. Simultaneously, you drain bank reserves.
But people don’t understand money and central banking.
As Waller, Williams, and Logan previously remarked. They “believe the Fed can keep unloading bonds even when officials cut interest rates at some future date.”
the Payrolls seasonally adjusted Birth-Death model added +76k jobs, which is pure fantasy since we know that business bankruptcies have climbed to near cycle highs and new business creation has slowed to a crawl. When you strip out this skew, private sector jobs actually declined fractionally. Also . the average hourly wage number came in light at +0.2% MoM (the consensus was at +0.3%) and that helped take the YoY trend down a tick to +3.7% from +3.8% (consensus was +3.8%). It does beg the question as to just how tight the labor market is if wage growth is decelerating as opposed to accelerating
61,000 of the continued claims are near Washington DC. I suspect the rest of the uptick can be found near the government funded hotspots nationwide that got their funding cut.
I wouldn’t trust any data/forecasts coming out of dc under the current regime.
Or any regime.
China should work on finalizing a trade agreement with the US. I don’t think they want to miss on on this Big Beautiful Bill spending spree and the current Euro spending spree. 😉
The US and Europe stock markets are going for ATHs while Chinese stock markets are at the same level as 15 years ago and flat
China is well aware agreements with the current regime are meaningless.
Most of the “spending” is tax cuts, defense, and border security. I doubt that China is going to have any chance of getting in on that. Perhaps Chinese-made rubber bullets? Leg irons?
What China needs is another stimmy bill that fires confetti money off in cannons, like 2020. That ain’t happening.
True. But tax cuts does mean more discretionary spending on gadgets, clothing, toys, etc.
I was sort of being sarcastic in the original post too. LOL
I am sure there is a reason but why has one of the biggest Markets in the world not seen any stock market gains unlike every other country over the past 15 years.
Don’t you mean, yachts, islands, and underage hookers?
The rich are getting these tax cuts. Everyone else gets schlonged.
Question for everybody: When the feds are borrowing 6-7% of GDP every year (mostly to hand over to people for consumption) can a recession even happen? Every man woman and child are borrowing $1000 per month via the government. How can a recession get started in this fiscal environment?
The wealthy hoover it up, put it in crypto, and wait for the next delivery of less valuable dollars.
The USA is being looted. When they’re done, they’ll scuttle off to their private islands and let the country collapse, while blaming the people trying to do something about the collapse.
The mouthbreathers that worship them will cheer them from the mud.
If the wealthy are putting those dollars in crypto they are essentially just putting them in the ether.
I suspect instead they are buying as many productive assets they can. When they can’t they are buying those islands you mention.
Klaus Schwab said to imagine it is 2030, you own nothing and are happy.
Every action has an opposite reaction (Newton’s Third Law of Motion). Or put another way, don’t look behind as something is coming to bite you in the ass.
Inflation will soar and perhaps we will skip the recession and just jump directly to the depression.