Economists' Outlook

Housing stats and analysis from NAR's research experts.

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 and the ADP report.

  • Today’s two job reports suggest improvement in the labor market, though improvement is still shy. New jobless claims finally declined by 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 418,000 after several weeks of consistent increases.
  • Decline could have been greater but for Minnesota’s 2,5000 state employees who had to file for claims due to the government shot down. Still, this decline brings the four-week moving average of new claims only 3,000 down, to 424,750.
  • Economists generally estimate that one new claims fall below 400,000, the economy is creating more jobs than losing. Continuing unemployment benefit claims are also down, a significant  43,000 to 3,681,000 in the week ended June 25.
  • The biggest drop in claims was in Pennsylvania, 4,974 fewer layoffs in the transportation, entertainment, and service industries. The largest increase in claims was in New Jersey with 6,827 new claims.
  • Separately, the ADP report which tracts private-sector jobs in the U.S. showed 157,000 new jobs were added last month. Most of the them were service sector jobs, while factory jobs rebounded some as well.  The June ADP report showed large businesses (500+ employees) added only 10,000 new employees, while medium-size businesses added 59,000 new jobs.
  • The largest jump was among small businesses which created 88,000 new workers. Job creation among small business is generally a good indicator of future labor market trends.
  • The employment report for June, including government jobs, is coming out tomorrow. Due to layoffs among state and local governments, tomorrow’s report is expected to show less than 157,000 jobs gained in June.

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