Jobless Claims Beat Expectations: A Closer Look at the Data

Today's jobless claims data were better than expectations, with 230,000 initial claims reported, beating the forecast of 247,000 and showing an improvement from last month's 246,000 claims.

Key Data Summary

Strengths and Weaknesses by State

The unadjusted data showed that initial claims under state programs totaled 225,841, a decrease of 3,478 (or -1.5%) from the previous week. This figure is significantly better than the comparable week in 2022, which reported 202,952 initial claims. The unadjusted insured unemployment rate remained unchanged at 1.2%.

Continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs amounted to 1,815,491, marking a decrease of 6,419 from the previous week. This is also an improvement from the 1,515,977 weekly claims filed in the comparable week in 2022.

The states with the highest insured unemployment rates were California (2.4%), New Jersey (2.4%), Massachusetts (2.1%), Minnesota (2.0%), Rhode Island (1.9%), Illinois (1.8%), New York (1.8%), Alaska (1.7%), Oregon (1.7%), Puerto Rico (1.6%), and Washington (1.6%).

Initial Claims by State (Week Ending April 15)

The largest increases in initial claims were seen in New York (+6,600), Georgia (+3,245), Connecticut (+1,223), Rhode Island (+1,058), and South Carolina (+688), while the largest decreases were reported in California (-4,456), Texas (-2,801), Pennsylvania (-1,789), Indiana (-1,516), and Oregon (-1,202).

Resilience in the Job Market

The job market has demonstrated impressive resilience, as evidenced by the 1.6 jobs available for every insured unemployed person seeking work and low unemployment rate despite a very aggressive hiking cycle by the Fed.

This level of job availability with nearly 10 million open jobs has likely contributed to the better-than-expected jobless claims data, particularly as the labor force participation rate remains quite low vs historical norms. Making it more difficult for employers to find workers.

Despite the challenges faced by some industries and states, the overall trend in jobless claims is not as bad as one may expect.

That being said, as the year goes on, and we see tightening credit, high rates, and a declining economy have a larger impact on businesses, we expect that the employment situation may deteriorate.