Daily Economic Update: Jobless Claims

Each day the Research staff takes a look at recently released economic indicators, addressing what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update highlights jobless claims.

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  Last week’s significant decline in new jobless claims suggests that the surge in April was more likely caused by temporary events than by slowing of the employment expansion. New claims dropped by 29,000 to 409,000 following the 40,000-decline in the previous week.
• The four-week average is still at 439,000 which is above the 400,000 level needed for significant reversal of the employment market. Continuing claims also posted a significant drop of 81,000.
• The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending May 7 were in Alabama, California, Puerto Rico, Michigan, and Mississippi, while the largest decreases were in New York, Wisconsin, Ohio, Connecticut, and New Jersey. In Alabama, the increase in layoffs reflected the impact of storms and tornadoes of the previous week.
• There had been 1.31 million net new job additions in the past 12 months to April.  Assuming that jobless claims continue to trend down, NAR expects about 1.5 to 2 million net new jobs in the next 12 months.