Thursday, December 16, 2010

Jobless Claims Show Stagnant Employment

from Zero Hedge:

Initial jobless claims came at 420K, a slight decline from the prior number of 423K, and as always woefully insufficient to actually start helping the unemployment rate. The prior was naturally revised higher, as we expected last week. On the other hand, continuing claims jumped from 4.086MM to 4.135MM on expectations of 4.115MM. NSA claims continued to be a notably higher than seasonal, and was at 486,284 this week. Most notably, people claiming benefits across all Unemployment Insurance Programs rose by a huge 893,959 in the week ended November 27 (of which 142K was in EUC and 182K was in extended claims)