Adding to the confusion of Job’s week, initial jobless claims fell for the third straight, according to the Department of Labors weekly survey.
- Initial jobless claims were 232,000 for the week ending August 27th, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This was the third straight week claims fell.
- Economists had projected that claims would rise to 243,000.
It’s all local. Connecticut reversed course from last week with a drop of 1,816 claims to help to lead the drop nationally. Missouri reported a 1,370 claim drop and Oklahoma was a close third with 1,334 fewer clams
- On the other side, New York saw a big jump with 4,754 new claims for the week followed by Massachusetts (+3,079) and Michigan (+1,128).
Continuing claims were actually up for the week with a 26,000 claim increase to 1.438M.
For those who are keep tracking at home, we started the week on Tuesday with the JOLTS report showing a jump to 11.2M job openings (tight labor market). On Wednesday, the new and improved ADP report showed only 123,000 jobs created in August (looser labor market). And now, we have initial claims falling for the third week in a row (tight labor market). What is going to happen in Friday’s nonfarm payroll report is anyone’s guess.