Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits saw a less-than-expected correction in the September 14 week, up 15,000 to 309,000, after administrative issues the prior week caused jobless claims to plunge to a seven-year low, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
And while a Labor Department analyst said jobless claims are back to "our normal weekly volume," he added that the computer system conversions/upgrades by California and Nevada in the Sept. 7 week - which meant not all claims were processed - is now impacting continuing claims.
Continuing claims, down to a five and a half-year low in the Sept. 7 week, are "80,000 to 90,000 lower than they should be," he said.
No states were estimated in this report, and the analyst said both California and Nevada "appear to be reporting claims at more normal levels," receiving from them a full week's worth of data.
He warned, however, that California especially is still working through the backlog of unprocessed claims, which may impact claims data - both initial and continuing - over the next week or two.
"It may take another few weeks to clean everything up," the analyst said.
Expectations for this week's report was for a claims level of 330,000, an increase of 38,000 from the 292,000 previously reported for the Sept. 7 week. Claims in that week were revised to 294,000.
The initial claims seasonally adjusted 4-week moving average fell again in the Sept. 14 survey week, down 7,000 to 314,750. This is its lowest level since it was reported at 312,000 in the week of Oct. 6,
2007.
In a survey week comparison, initial jobless claims are down 28,000 compared to the August 17 employment survey week.
The Labor analyst said seasonal adjustment factors had expected a 12.5% jump in unadjusted claims, around 28,796, in the Sept. 14 week. Instead, unadjusted claims rose by 18.4%, or 42,262, to 271,747. That level is below the 330,454 level reported in the comparable week a year ago.
The state data released for the September 7 week indicated unadjusted initial claims increased in 13 states and declined in 40 states, with none unchanged. The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands are included in this data.
The level of continuing claims came in at 2.787 million after seasonal adjustment in the Sept. 7 week, a decline of 28,000 from the previous week. This is the lowest level since the week of January 19, 2008, when it came in at 2.770 million.
The level of unadjusted continuing claims fell again, down this time by 13,496 to 2,505,514 in the September 7 week, below the 23,298,000 level in the comparable week a year ago.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment fell to 2.1% in the Sept. 7 week from 2.2% in the August 31 week, remaining below the seasonally adjusted 2.6% rate in the comparable week a year earlier.
The unemployment rate among the insured labor force is well below 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.
The Labor Department said the level of unadjusted Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits claims was unchanged in the August 31 week at 1,454,824.
The Labor Department reported that a total of 4,037,491 persons claimed unemployment benefits in the Aug. 31 week, a drop-off of 235,250 from the previous week, and below the 5,173,597 persons in the comparable week a year ago. These data are not seasonally adjusted, and include regular state claims, federal employee claims, new veterans claims, the EUC and extended benefits programs, state additional benefits, and STC/Workshare claims.
