This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report was the bearer of moderately good news. New claims dropped 5k against last week’s revised number to 382k. Compare this to the Bloomberg consensus range of 378k to 390k. Last week’s number was revised up 2k, so some of the good news is mitigated. From the report:

In the week ending March 19, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 382,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 387,000. The 4-week moving average was 385,250, a decrease of 1,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 386,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.0 percent for the week ending March 12, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.0 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 12 was 3,721,000, a decrease of 2,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,723,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,755,250, a decrease of 28,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,783,250.

The unadjusted data looks encouraging as well:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 351,204 in the week ending March 19, a decrease of 23,487 from the previous week. There were 408,653 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.4 percent during the week ending March 12, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,260,519, a decrease of 36,286 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.1 percent and the volume was 5,344,610.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending March 5 was 8,766,062.

Note that the seasonal adjustments used for the last four years will be revised next week.

In other news, Toyota may halt production at some US facilities due to supply chain disruptions. I’ve seen estimates of a 40k reduction in vehicle output, but the temporary halt of Prius production in Japan may account for a significant portion of that. Other Japanese automakers have experienced problems as well. This will likely have some negative impacts on the US labor market.

This report was moderately good. The more reports we get below 400k, the better. Any drop in new claims is welcome. But while fewer layoffs are good, net hiring is better. These good weekly reports will translate into higher expectations of the monthly employment situation report.