In each Economic Update, the Research staff analyzes recently released economic indicators and addresses what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses jobless claims.
- Initial claims for unemployment insurance for the week ending November 27 dropped by 27,000 claims to 393,000. This is the second week of decline after claims bumped up in the wake of hurricane Sandy.
- Meanwhile, as November 17, there were 3.28 million filing continued claims for two weeks or more. It had been as high as 6.5 million just a few years ago.
- Partly based on unemployment insurance claims, NAR expects about 2 million net new job creations in 2013 assuming fiscal cliff is avoided.
- In a separate news, the second round of estimates now show the economy expanding at a faster pace of 2.7 percent in the third quarter, up from the advance estimate of 2 percent. Residential investment was the fastest growing component at 14.2 percent. Though a good positive revision for the third quarter, the fourth quarter GDP is expected to have slowed to about 1 percent growth. GDP growth for all of 2013 is expected be 2.3 percent.
