The number of new claims for unemployment for week ending 9/12/20 dropped a little, with “only” 860,000 people losing their jobs, down from an upwardly revised 893,000 the previous week. For contrast, before the government induced shutdown of the economy new claims averaged about 220,000 per week.
Better news in the data is the number of continuing claims for unemployment dropped about twice as much as the new claims, to 12.6M for the week ending 9/5/20. That is the lowest since the shutdown started.
CNBC report on 9/17/20 says Jobless claims were lower than expected but unemployment growth is still sluggish. The number of new claims was slightly better than the 875,000 which economists expected.
As I continue to sort out for myself what this means, will continue listing the stats I’m tracking.
The number of new claims for unemployment and number drawing unemployment is provided by Department of Labor. I calculated the net change, which I assume represents the number of new jobs, although it could also be that people dropping out of the job market wash into the new jobs number:
| new claim | new jobs | draw u/e | |
| 20.29 | |||
| 6/13/2020 | 1.54 | 2.60 | 19.23 |
| 6/20/2020 | 1.48 | 1.95 | 18.76 |
| 6/27/2020 | 1.41 | 2.41 | 17.76 |
| 7/4/2020 | 1.31 | 1.77 | 17.30 |
| 7/11/2020 | 1.31 | 2.46 | 16.15 |
| 7/18/2020 | 1.42 | 0.62 | 16.95 |
| 7/25/2020 | 1.44 | 2.30 | 16.09 |
| 8/1/2020 | 1.19 | 1.80 | 15.48 |
| 8/8/2020 | 0.97 | 1.69 | 14.76 |
| 8/15/2020 | 1.10 | 1.37 | 14.49 |
| 8/22/2020 | 1.01 | 2.21 | 13.29 |
| 8/29/2020 | 0.88 | 0.63 | 13.54 |
| 9/5/2020 | 0.89 | 1.81 | 12.63 |
| 9/12/2020 | 0.86 | ||
| 9/19/2020 | (0.86) | ||
| — | — | ||
| total | 16.0 | 23.6 | |
| net new jobs | 39.6 |
Data source
Weekly press release from the Department of labor: Unemployment insurance weekly claims. At the end of the report you can find several months’ worth of previous weekly data.
Seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate
The number of people drawing unemployment is dropping each week due to the number of new jobs. The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate is slowly dropping:
| date | revised | prelim | change |
| 6/20/2020 | 12.9% | 13.2% | |
| 7/27/2020 | 12.2% | 12.4% | -0.7% |
| 7/4/2020 | 11.8% | 11.9% | -0.4% |
| 7/11/2020 | 11.1% | 11.1% | -0.7% |
| 7/18/2020 | 11.6% | 0.5% | |
| 7/25/2020 | 11.0% | -0.6% | |
| 8/1/2020 | 10.6% | -0.4% | |
| 8/8/2020 | 10.1% | -0.5% | |
| 8/15/2020 | 9.9% | -0.2% | |
| 8/22/2020 | 9.1% | -0.8% | |
| 8/29/2020 | 9.3% | 9.2% | 0.2% |
| 9/5/2020 | 8.6% | -0.7% |
Recap of new claims
Below is my running tally of the new unemployment claims. Table shows weekly claims in millions and as a percentage of February civilian labor force.
| new claims | % of Feb | |
| 2/1 to 3/14 ave. | 0.220 | |
| —— | —- | |
| 3/21/2020 | 3.310 | 2.01% |
| 3/28/2020 | 6.870 | 4.18% |
| 4/4/2020 | 6.620 | 4.02% |
| 4/11/2020 | 5.240 | 3.18% |
| 4/18/2020 | 4.440 | 2.70% |
| 4/25/2020 | 3.840 | 2.33% |
| 5/2/2020 | 3.170 | 1.93% |
| 5/9/2020 | 2.690 | 1.63% |
| 5/16/2020 | 2.450 | 1.49% |
| 5/23/2020 | 2.120 | 1.29% |
| 5/30/2020 | 1.880 | 1.14% |
| 6/6/2020 | 1.570 | 0.95% |
| 6/13/2020 | 1.540 | 0.94% |
| 6/20/2020 | 1.480 | 0.90% |
| 6/27/2020 | 1.410 | 0.86% |
| 7/4/2020 | 1.310 | 0.80% |
| 7/11/2020 | 1.300 | 0.79% |
| 7/18/2020 | 1.420 | 0.86% |
| 7/25/2020 | 1.435 | 0.87% |
| 8/1/2020 | 1.191 | 0.72% |
| 8/8/20 | 0.971 | 0.59% |
| 8/15/20 | 1.104 | 0.67% |
| 8/22/20 | 1.011 | 0.61% |
| 8/29/20 | 0.881 | 0.54% |
| 9/5/20 | 0.893 | 0.54% |
| 9/12/20 | 0.860 | 0.52% |
| —- | —- | |
| shutdown subtotal | 61.0 | 32.0% |
| 2/20 civilian labor force | 164.5 |