Big Increase in Jobless Claims

This morning’s jobless claims report showed that 853,000 Americans filed jobless claims. That’s a big increase over 716,000 last week. It’s the highest number in nearly three months. This is a continuation of the poor numbers we saw in last week’s jobs report.

Continuing claims increased by 230,000 to 5.76 million, the first time that number has gone up since late August.

Markets reacted little to the news, with Wall Street indicating a slightly lower open for stocks.

The rise in virus cases has put substantial pressure on the labor market, with nonfarm payrolls increasing just 245,000 in November after rising 610,000 in October.

Those difficulties were reflected further in unadjusted jobless claims, which totaled 947,504, a 31.9% increase from the previous week. Seasonal factors were pointing to a 12.9% increase, the Labor Department said.

This morning’s CPI report indicated that inflation rose by 0.2% last month. That’s after no increase last month. Core inflation also rose by 0.2% in November. Expectations for core and headline were 0.1%.

Over the last year, headline inflation is up 1.16% while core inflation is running at 1.65%. The economy experienced deflation this past spring when the coronavirus first arrived. That seems to have passed by inflation is still subdued.

Posted by on December 10th, 2020 at 9:18 am


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