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 unemployment insurance claims and ADP employment.
- Last week’s filings for unemployment insurance claims provide another indicator that the economy continues its recovery and that businesses are not significantly cutting back on jobs. Initial claims for unemployment insurance (seasonally adjusted) for the week ending October 27 declined for the second straight week by 9,000 to 363,000 claims, following the previous week’s decline. Initial weekly claims data are highly volatile so a better indicator of the general trend is the 4-week moving average, which is now at 367,250. Weekly initial claims are now treading below peak levels of about 600,000 in 2009 and moving towards, although slowly, the pre-recession mark of about 300,000 claims per week.
- Meanwhile, the number of unemployed who have filed continuing claims stood at 3.26 million as of the week ending October 20, slightly up from the previous week. This is about half the peak level in 2009, although still above the pre-recession mark of about 2.5 million.
- In a related report, ADP, a company that process private payrolls, reported that the private sector added 155,000 jobs in October, following September’s 162,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics will release the official employment figures for October tomorrow. In recent months, ADP data showed bigger gains than officially reported by the Labor Department. Irrespective, the job market is slowly moving in the right direction. NAR expects 1.3 million net new jobs this year once the December figures are finalized and more than 2 million next year.
