Jobless Claims: Stalled in Thanksgiving Week

Bottom Line:   Claims fell over 50k on a non-seasonally adjusted basis last week, even more than the seasonal adjustment model suggested, pushing the reported level of claims back down to 225k. Seasonal adjustments around the Thanksgiving holiday are difficult as models can't easily reflect activity on the Friday after Thanksgiving. On a trend basis, continuing claims are trending steadily wider. We expect weekly claims will resume their modest uptrend in early December (our Nowcast model forecast doesn't see an immediate rebound this week).Initial Jobless Claims FELL 16k in the week ended November 26th to 225k, BELOW the 4-week average of 228.75k, ABOVE the 13-week average of 218.07692k and 15k BELOW the year-ago level. Claims for the 19th of Nov were revised up from +240k to +241k. Non-seasonally adjusted Claims FELL 50.512k.Continuing Claims ROSE 57k in the week ended November 19th to 1.608M, ABOVE the 4-week average of 1.53875M, ABOVE the 13-week average of 1.439692M but 368k BELOW the year-ago level.