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.

• Initial jobless claims have been bouncing above the 400,000 weekly claims level for the majority of 2011. Fewer than 400,000 claims would suggest more jobs being created than dissolved. In the last week, initial claims fell 6,000 to 403,000, following the 5,000 revision last week to 409,000.
• The four-week average is down for the fourth week in a row, smoothing out, and is at 403,000 - 6,250 lower than the week before. That is also 20,000 down from the same time last month and the lowest point since the middle of April.
• Continuing claims jumped 25,000 to 3.719 million. The four-week average, which has continually decreased, fell 7,000 to 3.723 million. No special circumstances were reported in this week’s data.
• The largest increases in initial claims were in California, New York, Texas, Washington, and Pennsylvania while the largest decreases were in Wisconsin, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Virgin Islands.
• NAR expects about 1.5 million net new jobs in 2012, but they could rise to 2 million if the unemployment claims can fall and remain consistently below 400,000 per week.