Jobless Claims: No Signs of Slowdown in Labor Market

Bottom Line: After moving higher throughout July, claims continued to move lower throughout August and into September. While there were some distortions due to the Labor Day holiday, the trend is to the downside again. All this suggests the labor market remained historically tight and might be tightening again after hints of loosening earlier this summer.Our Nowcast model continues to run below the reported level of claims and has been a good predictor of the recent declines in claims.  It suggests further downside this week through Wednesday.Initial Jobless Claims FELL 5k in the week ended September 10th to 213k, BELOW the 4-week average of 224k, BELOW the 13-week average of 237.15385k and 150k BELOW the year-ago level. Claims for the 3rd of Sep were revised down from +222k to +218k. Non-seasonally adjusted Claims FELL 16.934.Continuing Claims were nearly unchanged in the week ended September 3rd,  2k to 1.403M, BELOW the 4-week average of 1.41325M, ABOVE the 13-week average of 1.388154M and 1.225M BELOW the year-ago level. Continuing Claims for the 27th of Aug were revised down from +1.473M to +1.401M.