The 500k hurdle was cleared with room to spare. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report has been released a day earlier than normal due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Initial claims dropped considerably to 466,000. Last week’s number was revised down 4,000 to 501k. This was inside the Bloomberg consensus range of 460k to 500k. From the report:

In the week ending Nov. 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 466,000, a decrease of 35,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 501,000. The 4-week moving average was 496,500, a decrease of 16,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 513,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.1 percent for the week ending Nov. 14, a decrease of 0.2 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 4.3 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Nov. 14 was 5,423,000, a decrease of 190,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,613,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,613,750, a decrease of 98,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,712,250.

Finally.

Unfortunately, the seasonally adjusted numbers are only useful for tracking trends, and some of the trend data will be different this year from last year. While both years had late Thanksgivings, the Christmas marketing this year is different from last year. More retailers tried to boost the shopping season earlier this year, with many retailers putting out Christmas displays while Halloween displays were still relevant. I haven’t seen many reports attempting to correlate the marketing strategies with hiring strategies, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the two were planned together. This shouldn’t be misinterpreted: the seasonally adjusted numbers are a big positive in this report. However, the unadjusted numbers made a decisive move in the wrong direction:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 543,926 in the week ending Nov. 21, an increase of 68,080 from the previous week. There were 609,138 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.8 percent during the week ending Nov. 14, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,070,712, an increase of 187,642 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.8 percent and the volume was 3,782,040.

Despite the move in the wrong direction, there’s an important piece of good news: year over year improvement. We have less new claims this year than last. There are more unemployed than last year as well, so this is good news of the “less bad is good” variety. Remember, the first step is always to stem the bleeding (according to WHO, it’s to remove obstructions to airways, but the metaphor fell apart quickly).

The good / bad lists also look good this week:

The good list (-1000 or more): CA, TX, PA, WI, OH, MO, TN, NJ, IL GA, SC, MA, AL, IA, NC, AR, KY, VA, MD, NY, MI, CO

The bad list (+1000 or more): FL

FL (the worst) was +1,313 vs CA (the best) at -7,987. California gave some credit to Veterans Day (remember, good/bad lists lag by an extra week). One less day to get canned. Manufacturing was the best represented justification for the decreases, with construction and services making a strong showing (not a lot of credit to the trade industry).

The issue of the failed unemployment benefits extension remains. As of today, the recent extension will expire with the previous extensions at the end of the year. There are rumors that a new stimulus bill is being discussed in both the House and the Senate. It would include provisions to extend unemployment benefits without having an expiration date at the end of 2009. I’ve not seen confirmation on this, so don’t get excited beyond the “rumor” status.

Bottom line: this was a good report, but the unemployed have severe short term concerns.