Today Unemployment Numbers...

[bithead1]

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/

Beautifully phrased:

"This morning the market spiked based on the "better than expected unemployment numbers"; initial jobless claims 565,000 instead of 603,000 expected. 

But let's not forget that this is still a half-million people who filed unemployment last week, never mind that Friday was July 4th and the unemployment offices were closed!

So we had a 4 day week instead of a 5 day one, and yet people jump up and down and scream "green shoots!"

Someone needs to remind people that when you remove 20% of the reportable days from a week, you shrink the reportable number by 20% or so too (less whatever behavioral shift has people showing up the previous day.)

Rick Santelli threw the appropriate amount of cold water on this report, given that continuing claims are now up to 6.88 million - up more than 170,000 over estimates! 

As I have repeatedly said, continuing claims are what count - it is not whether you lose your job, it is whether you can find a new one.  If the answer is no, the continuing claims number will continue to ramp even though the "initial claims" number comes down.

The answer is "no" to the question of "if you get laid off, can you find a new job."

Don't listen to the fools - there is no "green shoot" in that report."

[Grower]

I guess that makes next week's "make-up" report real interesting . . .

[Ellie]

Re: the 4th of July holiday.

It probably constitutes even more than a 20% skew in the numbers, because a lot of people took Thursday off to make a longer weekend and went camping, to the beach, etc., and in addition, it's just the general mindset to put stuff off until after a long weekend, including letting people go.

But that being said, I would really like, again, some clarification on this number. This is INITIAL claims, and Denninger says that a "half-million people filed unemployment last week," right?. And an initial claim is one put in by a person who just lost their job, yes? So how does this pace of people losing their jobs and filing an initial unemployment claim NOT equate to two million people losing their jobs per month?

Because every time I bring this up, people tell me I'm wrong.

[kathyprepper]

You can't be wrong if my math is correct unless a huge number of people are getting jobs during that month and I don't believe that's true.

[buffalocreek]

"never mind that Friday was July 4th"

July 4 was on Saturday.

[Grower]

It was the July 4th DAY OFF.

[vic_d]

But that being said, I would really like, again, some clarification on this number. This is INITIAL claims, and Denninger says that a "half-million people filed unemployment last week," right?. And an initial claim is one put in by a person who just lost their job, yes? So how does this pace of people losing their jobs and filing an initial unemployment claim NOT equate to two million people losing their jobs per month?

The weekly number is gross number not the net number. So, for example, with two million people losing their jobs per month, but with 1.5 million getting hired, the net monthly job loss is 500k.

[Grower]

So, how many are getting hired each week?

[vic_d]

They do not report the weekly hiring numbers.

[Grower]

Do they do it monthly then? Damn. Hard to keep track of these things without comparable numbers. Well, maybe they want it that way . . .

Kinda like you can't track M3 anymore either.

[DJSNOLA]

Stock market and unemployment offices were closed friday. Along with banks etc.