Thursday’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report is out. New claims are slightly down while continuing claims moved over 6.66 million (yes, I needed to include that precision), setting the record once again. The headline on Bloomberg’s homepage was Jobless Claims in U.S. Are Higher Than Estimated; Benefit Rolls at Record, which was a little more intriguing than the headline over the article (AP also opted for a dull headline). From Bloomberg:

More Americans than forecast filed claims for unemployment insurance last week, and the total number of workers receiving benefits rose to a record, signs the job market continues to weaken even as the economic slump eases.

Initial jobless claims fell by 12,000 to 631,000 in the week ended May 16, from a revised 643,000 the prior week that was higher than initially estimated, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The total number of people collecting benefits rose to 6.66 million, a record reading for a 16th straight week, and a sign companies are still not hiring.

Job losses are likely to continue after Chrysler LLC filed for bankruptcy and General Motors Corp. may follow suit and terminate 1,100 U.S. dealers. The auto slump threatens to slow any recovery from the deepest recession in half a century and keep pushing unemployment higher.

I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who felt the need for three significant figures on continuing claims. The problem continues to be a dearth of hiring, and there’s no reason to believe the benefit claims number will hold the record very long. Once again, Chrysler’s bankruptcy is being blamed. This week’s report will allow us to check on that claim. But first, the unadjusted data from the actual report:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 536,588 in the week ending May 16, a decrease of 33,824 from the previous week. There were 319,694 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.6 percent during the week ending May 9, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 6,189,434, a decrease of 2,110 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.1 percent and the volume was 2,847,329.

The unadjusted data is looking significantly better, and I have a hard time believing that there’s much of a seasonal component to the numbers right now on a percentage basis. The numbers are still terrible, though.

Here are the good / bad lists:

The good list (-1000 or more): CA, WI, KS, OK

The bad list (+1000 or more): MD, LA, GA, AL, MS, OH, TN, IN, MO, PA, KY, VA, NC, MI

MI (the worst) was +16,817 vs CA (the best) at -10,052.

The changes in both MI and CA were outliers (the runner ups were +3,783 and -1,691 respectively). Sure enough, my skepticism was unnecessary and the justification provided by officials last week was correct: the auto industry deserves the blame. Six of the states on the bad list wound up there because of the unravelling of the industry. As the dealerships close, I expect we’ll see more widespread damage. In particular, look for New York and Florida, who both have rather extensive dealer networks getting the axe. We should start getting the increased claims from the dealers in two weeks.