Initial Jobless Claims Rise to 368,000, Bucking Latest Trends

The Street ^ | 12/12/2013 | BY Keris Alison Lahiff

[SeekAndFind]

Recent jobs data has demonstrated the labor market's resilient return to strength, but the latest initial jobless claims numbers released Thursday paint a different story.

Seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims increased 68,000 to 368,000 for the week ended Dec. 7, 22% higher than a revised figure released a week earlier. The four-week moving average jumped 6,000 to 328,750.

The increase in new claims for government unemployment benefits has negated recent declines and is higher than expected. According to analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters, new claims were forecast to rise a modest 20,000 to 320,000 over the week.

[SeekAndFind]

What the heck happened? Jobless claims were just 298,000 last Thursday!! Now it jumps by 60,000 this week ???

Are companies laying off people before Christmas?

Makes little sense.

Anyway -- It's fun with Thursday jobs numbers once again.

[BenLurkin]

Well...this is unexpected.

[MrB]

Must have been something else they needed to cover up last week.

[Paulie]

***Recent jobs data has demonstrated the labor market’s resilient return to strength,...***

What this and most other economic data demonstrates is that the Ministry of Truth is alive and well in the USA.

[Bob]

Unexpected - again (or perhaps more accurately, still).

[knarf]

Where were you when JFK was assassinated ?
Where were you when Bobby Kennedy was murdered ?
Where were you when MLKjr was killed ?
Where were you when Christmas disappeared in America ?

[Brett66]

Oh no, their lie was “unexpected”. This concludes this week’s kabuki theatre.

[jpl]

It isn't getting talked about much, but retail is slowly dying as more and more people are doing their shopping online each year.

In all likelihood, there are some major chains that won't survive this season.

[Texas Eagle]

How is it that 370,000 people lose their jobs every WEEK but only 100,000 or so new jobs are created every MONTH and somehow the unemployment rate goes down?

Cooking the books anyone?

[VerySadAmerican]

They hoped their friends in the media won’t report these changes.

Black Friday supposedly showed an 2.7% increase over last year. I wonder if that’s not because of inflation. Say inflation was 10% and people spent 7.3% less than last year. Thus a 2.7% increase in actual dollars spent.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

Of course. They do jobless claims weekly.

They do "Unemployment" monthly.

They wanted to claim 7.0% unemployment, so they diverted about 60,000 jobless claims to this week, after the 7.0% figure was released.

Will the media figure this out?

[blueunicorn6]

I guess it’s not lying for Democrats as long as a month later they whisper, “Maybe it was higher”.

[Phillyred]

The less people have to spend, the more they’ll do their shopping on Black Friday I guess.

[Grams A]

but retail is slowly dying...”

Made the rounds of three stores last night: Dollar Tree, Target and Michael’s (a craft store). Dollar Tree’s food shelves were almost bare and lots of Christmas stocking stuffer type things were two for $1 instead of a $1 each. Shoppers in Target were almost non-existent, only two check-out lanes open with one person in each but person in front of me had coupons for everything they bought. Michael’s has already reduced their prices on anything vaguely related to Christmas to 50 to 70 per cent off.

Boutique stores at our near-by shopping center are already posting signs such as 30% off everything or buy one item, get one of equal value free.

In spite of all the sales, most of the items I looked at were just junk or of poor quality. If this is true in other places I would suspect that spending will be off everywhere including on-line.

[Arrowhead1952]

Cooking the books anyone?

Just stretching the truth a bit, and the SRM will never tell the truth. If there was an (R) in the white house, this would be the top story every night on the news.

[kabar]

Time to manipulate the numbers again so the Fed can continue with its QE buys to buoy the stock market.

[Grampa Dave]

We are observing the same thing out here:

"Made the rounds of three stores last night: Dollar Tree, Target and Michael’s (a craft store). Dollar Tree’s food shelves were almost bare and lots of Christmas stocking stuffer type things were two for $1 instead of a $1 each. Shoppers in Target were almost non-existent, only two check-out lanes open with one person in each but person in front of me had coupons for everything they bought. Michael’s has already reduced their prices on anything vaguely related to Christmas to 50 to 70 per cent off."

"Boutique stores at our near-by shopping center are already posting signs such as 30% off everything or buy one item, get one of equal value free.

In spite of all the sales, most of the items I looked at were just junk or of poor quality. If this is true in other places I would suspect that spending will be off everywhere including on-line.

I have been posting for a month that Obozocare, AKA, the Unaffordable Care Act is having a negative impact on Christmas. Black Friday weekend/week was at least 3% under last year.

[Eagles6]

Oh, because you’re using White math, you racist!

[WILLIALAL]

“How is it that 370,000 people lose their jobs every WEEK but only 100,000 or so new jobs are created every MONTH and somehow the unemployment rate goes down?”

As an example: Even though 370,000 people lost their jobs during the last week, or any week, but during those same weeks, 385,000 people may have been been hired.

Its the difference between those hired and those fired during the full month that determines the monthly unemployment numbers.

[grania]

...retail is slowly dying...

These stores aren't doing themselves any favors. I can't think of any store I can go to within a half hour where there is unique and high-quality merchandise.