WASHINGTON — Despite the Presidents Day holiday, initial claims for U.S. state unemployment jumped 19,000 to 373,000 in the week of Feb. 23, the Labor Department reported yesterday.
The previous week’s initial claims level was revised up to 354,000 from the previously reported 349,000 level.
A Labor analyst said again for the latest week there were no special factors and that all states’ figures were actual with no estimates. The seasonal factor was configured for similar holiday weeks in 2002 and 1991 as well as averaging the change in recent years.
A comparison of survey weeks shows that continuing claims have an increase of 21,000 compared with the Jan. 12 week’s decrease of 22,000.
Seasonals had expected initial unadjusted claims to fall by 4.1% or 13,500, but unadjusted claims actually rose 0.8% or 2,400 to a level of 328,178 in the Feb. 23 week. A year ago there were 299,000 unadjusted claims.
The four-week moving average in the Feb. 23 week was 360,500, the same as originally reported for the previous week, now revised up to 361,750.
Again, the level of continuing claims rose 21,000 to 2.807 million in the Feb. 16 week, compared to 2.624 million a year earlier.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate remained 2.1% in the Feb. 16 week, up from 2.0% in the comparable week a year ago.
The unemployment rate among the insured labor force is roughly half that reported monthly by the Labor Department because claims are approved for the most part only for job-losers, not the job-leavers and labor force reentrants included in the monthly report.
— Market News International
