Hopes of pushing below 400k new claims a week are slowly evaporating. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report has been released. Initial claims grew to 480,000 while last week’s number was revised up 2,000. This missed the Bloomberg consensus range of 440k to 475k. From the report:

In the week ending Jan. 30, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 480,000, an increase of 8,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 472,000. The 4-week moving average was 468,750, an increase of 11,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 457,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for the week ending Jan. 23, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.5 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Jan. 23 was 4,602,000, an increase of 2,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,600,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,617,500, a decrease of 51,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,668,750.

This report was worse than expectations, and the bad news doesn’t stop at the seasonal adjustment. The unadjusted numbers, those that represent the actual unemployed, grew as well:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 530,405 in the week ending Jan. 30, an increase of 28,234 from the previous week. There were 682,176 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.4 percent during the week ending Jan. 23, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,665,141, an increase of 62,784 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.3 percent and the volume was 5,806,901.

On the plus side, this still represents a more stable environment from last year. This is a bit of a speed bump, though. We need these numbers to drop further. We’re still staring down the barrel of a jobless recovery. With unemployment this high, such a recovery will be short lived.

This is the final report that confirms: January started with a bang and ended with a whimper. Overall, it was a good month, with both ISM reports (manufacturing and service) indicating economic expansion. It wasn’t a great month, though, with a slight tilt against job creation. I still have some hope that we’ll see a positive jobs number tomorrow, though remember that it will still be negative once the seasonal adjustments are removed. With the data appearing that activity tapered off at the end of January, I’m not very hopeful that the seasonal adjustment will indicate a sustainable trend for jobs.

For optimists, or those that simply need some good news, census hiring is still just around the corner. Technically, it’s happening right now with a bit more to come. Watch for those ads or go to the comic-sans (really?!) how-to page over at census.gov. Someone should ask the 405 club how a temporary census job would effect someone’s potential unemployment insurance check. My quick search didn’t turn up a solid answer (so I won’t share what I think happens). I’m willing to phone the IRS to ask about tax deductions, but I’ll leave it to the 405 to call the state employment offices.

The good / bad lists are still for the part of the hump that moved down to meet the seasonal adjustment levels. That, combined with those that had a shortened work week due to MLK Day makes them look really good.

The good list (-1000 or more): CA, MI, NC, GA, MO, TN, NY, AL, FL, OH, IL, PA, TX, CT, IA, IN, MA, WA, MD, SC, WV, WI, AR, MN, NV, CO, KS, AZ, ID, ME, LA

The bad list (+1000 or more): PR, OR

OR (the worst) was +4,336 vs CA (the best) at -22,674. The big 4, construction, service, manufacturing, and trade, were well represented in the good list. No comments from Oregon or Puerto Rico.

January looked like it was off to a strong start. It’s beginning to look like we ran out of gas. While I still have some hopes for tomorrow’s report, I’m more concerned with how this report shapes up next week.