[lbo-talk] Jobless Claims Up Unexpectedly Last Week

[Doug Henwood]

Don't make too much of one week's move in jobless claims. The 
seasonal adjustment factors are often huge and vary widely from week 
to week. To make this point, here's what the series would look like 
for the last four months of this year if the weekly unadjusted number 
stayed at 350,000. The columns show the seasonal adjustment factor 
(the number [expressed as a percentage] by which you divide the 
unadjusted number to yield the seasonally adjusted level), the 
adjusted level, and the weekly change.

                        400,000

                 SAF   unadj isŠ   change

     9/6/03      75.3   464,807

    9/13/03      81.8   427,873   -36,935

    9/20/03      78.0   448,718    20,845

    9/27/03      75.2   465,426    16,708

    10/4/03      87.0   402,299   -63,127

   10/11/03      94.5   370,370   -31,928

   10/18/03      84.0   416,667    46,296

   10/25/03      90.1   388,457   -28,209

    11/1/03      97.7   358,240   -30,218

    11/8/03     107.4   325,885   -32,355

   11/15/03      96.0   364,583    38,699

   11/22/03     112.4   311,388   -53,195

   11/29/03      97.8   357,873    46,485

    12/6/03     129.7   269,854   -88,020

   12/13/03     116.4   300,687    30,834

   12/20/03     119.9   291,910    -8,777

   12/27/03     152.5   229,508   -62,402

And that's not counting the weekly volatility in the unadjusted 
numbers themselves. So best to stick with the 4-wk moving average.

Doug