Why Jobless Claims Declined this Week

Ford Motor Co (F). said it will idle most of its North American assembly plants for one week this summer instead of two, to increase output. Three of Chrysler Group LLC’s assembly plants and all except one of its engine, transmission and stamping factories will skip a summer shutdown this year. Since its 2009 bankruptcy, General Motors Co. hasn’t had a formal summer shutdown, Mark Reuss, president of the company’s North American operations, told reporters in May. ----- The "decline" was nothing but an anomaly due to the BLS formula that assumes auto plant shutdowns in the summer. So. What do the unadjusted numbers say? BLS release.

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 408,710 in the week ending July 13, an increase of 25,350 from the previous week. There were 455,260 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.4 percent during the week ending July 6, an increase of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week's revised rate. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,144,838, an increase of 333,812 from the preceding week's revised level of 2,811,026. A year earlier, the rate was 2.6 percent and the volume was 3,360,067. The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending June 29 was 4,519,501, a decrease of 1,903 from the previous week. There were 5,753,820 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012.

The actual bad numbers won't come out until they won't matter. Nota Bene: Running a blog is work. I've picked up the job again with sadness at the passing of hoocoodanode as a viable platform.