The volatility in new unemployment claims continues. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report bring us down to 415k. Last week’s number was revised up 3k. The Bloomberg consensus range was 354k to 434k, which highlights the impact of recent volatility on analyst claims more than it indicates increased optimism. From the report:

In the week ending Jan. 29, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 415,000, a decrease of 42,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 457,000. The 4-week moving average was 430,500, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 429,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.1 percent for the week ending Jan. 22, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.2 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Jan. 22 was 3,925,000, a decrease of 84,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,009,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,929,500, a decrease of 50,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,980,000.

There’s a small divergence in the unadjusted numbers, though they were still moving in the right direction.

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 459,683 in the week ending Jan. 29, a decrease of 26,633 from the previous week. There were 533,320 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7 percent during the week ending Jan. 22, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,619,319, an increase of 5,274 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.4 percent and the volume was 5,683,683.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending Jan. 15 was 9,298,859.

The good / bad lists look good, as anticipated (the distribution near the low end looks better than anticipated). Next week’s lists should also look good, just not quite this good. There was a slight misprint on this week’s good / bad lists (very unusual).

The good list (-1000 or more): CA, PA, NY, IN, FL, TX, IL, MI, OH, WI, MO, MD, WA, NJ, OR, KY, NV, KS, CO, UT, ID, AR, CT, LA, IA

The bad list (+1000 or more): PR, SC, NC, GA

GA (the worst) was +10,335 vs CA (the best) at -13,775. There weren’t a lot of comments in this list, and the shorter workweek received almost as much credit as the big 4 (construction, trade, manufacturing, and service).

In other news, I haven’t been tracking unemployment news this week (I went to a memorial service and was busy at work when I returned), so this is just quick scans of my news feed. Some states have started looking into additional unemployment benefits extensions on their own. Washington’s extension was proposed by a Republican, something I found interesting (doubly interesting is that the proposal almost derailed a very business-friendly bill). Another bill looking at extending benefits for more than 99 weeks was introduced in the US House. Such bills don’t have a chance in the Senate right now.

As a reminder, all eyes will be on tomorrow’s employment situation report. The Bloomberg consensus range is 55,000 to 200,000 jobs added. Let’s hope it is toward the high end.

This was a less-bad report. Once again, our only litmus test for a good report is one that brings us below 400k. The labor market instability has persisted longer than any time in the post war era. This has probably contributed to the even slower than usual turnaround in the unemployment rate.