(By Karl Denninger) So much for the allegedly-improving jobless claims numbers.
In the week ending July 14, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 386,000, an increase of 34,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 352,000. The 4-week moving average was 375,500, a decrease of 1,500 from the previous week's revised average of 377,000.
Hmmm.... That ain't good. And this was survey week too for the employment report.
Regular readers know I ignore the headline figure though, except when it turns my head. This time it did; that's just a nutty change.
It's possible that's people being let go after the July 4th Holiday, implying that the summer is a bust and merchants and such held on until the July 4th holiday in the hopes that the season would turn. I might buy that from my travels during the late June time frame -- it sure looked like a bust to me with traffic levels and tourism well below my expectations.
It's too early for me to pontificate on the July employment report on a formal basis -- but the big table is showing more roll-off. Specifically, EUC 2008 was down nearly 82,000 last week, with the total -121,985. The only bright light was that regular state in the last week of June was down 34,000 -- but that might have been the "last gasp" seasonal attempt to meet demand for the 4th.
This was a decidedly-weak report, and continues to underline that employment is not recovering.