This week’s US jobless claims are horrible
Things just aren't pretty in the US right now. And forgetting the shutdown for a moment – the Federal Reserve will have to deal with some nasty jobs numbers too.
Initial jobless claims have jumped from 308,000 to 374,000 this week. That's a huge rise, and much higher than the increase to 310,000 expected.
This unexpected surge is largely due to the numbers from California being available again (that data has been affected by a computer switchover and wasn't included in the last few releases).
That puts continuining jobless claims at 2.905m, down from 2.921m (revised from 2.925m).