Another update on new filings for jobless claims, another reason to keep the faith.
The Labor Department reports today that initial jobless claims fell 47,000 for the week through July 11 to 522,000, the lowest since early January. The decline is all the more encouraging because it suggests that the hefty fall for the holiday week through July 4 wasn’t a fluke.
We’ve been writing since March that jobless claims have a long history of peaking just ahead of or concurrently with the end of recessions (for some background, see here and here). But we’ve also been careful to note that this time may be a bit different in terms of what it implies for the period ahead.