Jobless Claims: Seasonals Skew Trend

Bottom Line:  Claims fell for the second week, surprising to the downside. Seasonal adjustments continue to impact the headline number with last week's 4th of July holiday. Unadjusted claims were higher. And with two holidays in the last four weeks (including the new Juneteenth holiday not captured in seasonal adjustment models), we should be careful about reading too much into shifts in trend indicators. That said, the 4-week average will likely fall below the 13-week average in the next few weeks, and that will garner headlines about the trend. Overall, most data, including real-time nowcasting, suggests the labor market is slowing but only very slowly.Initial Jobless Claims FELL -12k in the week ended July 8th to 237k, BELOW the 4-week average of 246.75k, BELOW the 13-week average of 242.23077k but 16k ABOVE the year-ago level. Non-seasonally adjusted Claims ROSE 6.928k.Continuing Claims ROSE 11k in the week ended July 1st to 1.729M, BELOW the 4-week average of 1.73525M, BELOW the 13-week average of 1.781692M but 415k ABOVE the year-ago level.