This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report brings some bad news, even on a seasonally adjusted basis. Initial claims rose to 444,000. Last week’s number was revised down 1,000. This was toward the high end of the Bloomberg consensus range of 400k to 450k. From the report:

In the week ending Jan. 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 444,000, an increase of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 433,000. The 4-week moving average was 440,750, a decrease of 9,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 449,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for the week ending Jan. 2, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.6 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Jan. 2 was 4,596,000, a decrease of 211,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,807,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,855,000, a decrease of 151,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,006,500.

The trend data is rather stubborn, refusing to punch through 400k. I had previously held the view that an extended stay below 500k would also get us to the point where job creation actually starts to take hold. The weakness of December’s employment situation report, coupled with the anticipated upcoming revisions, leads me to reiterate my claim that the 400k line is important.

I warned previously that the seasonal adjustment was going to be big. I demonstrated the importance of the seasonal adjustment to show trends. But, people aren’t trends, and the actual number of newly unemployed people doesn’t disappear because of a seasonal adjustment. That number has skyrocketed:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 801,086 in the week ending Jan. 9, an increase of 156,165 from the previous week. There were 956,791 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.6 percent during the week ending Jan. 2, an increase of 0.4 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,988,940, an increase of 503,924 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.4 percent and the volume was 5,855,855.

801,086 is a big number. The number of new claims is going to snap back in the near future. This is expected. Unfortunately, this is only reflective of the stability of the jobs market, not of the prospects of new job creation. The stability is better than last year. The prospect for new jobs still bears a striking resemblance to a goose egg.

I also wanted to point out that the census hiring of 1.2 million temporary workers absorbs roughly two weeks of newly unemployed. The open question is the impact on the official, seasonally adjusted statistics. Even though it’s on a 10 year cycle, census hiring should actually be erased by the seasonal adjustment. However, with more than twice the number of people vs the last census, maybe the increase will overpower the adjustment. I don’t know enough about the inputs they use (I assume the DoL uses something similar to the Census Bureau’s tool, but you’ll find that the inputs are much more important than the software).

The good / bad lists look terrible (as expected). This data corresponds to the week after Christmas.

The good list (-1000 or more): IL, FL, KS, MD, CA, NV

The bad list (+1000 or more): MA, AR, IA, MN, MI, NJ, OR, OH, SC, TX, CT, TN, PA, AL, WI, GA, NC, NY

NY (the worst) was +22,810 vs IL (the best) at -6,928. Only two states blame the holiday, which is a waste of a perfectly good (statistically valid) excuse. The blame was spread out through all industries. Also, if I’m allowed a pointless prediction, California is going to jump to the bad list next week. There’s no way it can sit three weeks in the good list right now.

There’s very little in the way of big jobs headlines expected in the next few weeks. When census hiring picks up, you can expect some PR, but the impact on the reports is a big unknown. Eventually, the extended benefits expiration will move back to center stage. The duration of unemployment, the total number of unemployed, the number of people unemployed for more than a year, etc. are all trending up. Only the stability numbers show great improvement. This isn’t all that surprising, and more improvement to stability—that nasty 400k barrier—will cause these other trends to end, if not outright reverse. That’s not that I expect a rapid recovery in jobs (I don’t, and probably won’t until smacked with happy hindsight), but an end to the bleeding is an event worth celebrating. This weekly report is where I expect the first genuine good news (followed by the monthly report).