Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims decline to 358,000

The DOL reports:

In the week ending October 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 358,000, a decrease of 15,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 373,000. The 4-week moving average was 336,500, an increase of 11,750 from the previous week's revised average of 324,750.

The previous week was revised down from 374,000.

The following graph shows the 4-week moving average of weekly claims since January 2000.

Click on graph for larger image.


The dashed line on the graph is the current 4-week average. The four-week average of weekly unemployment claims increased to 336,500.

Some of this recent increase in the four-week average was related to the government shutdown (and some related to processing issues in California).

Note: This information is collected by the states and was not delayed by the shutdown.