Employment stabilization improved again. That’s two weeks in a row, following a nasty bump in the numbers. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report provided no surprises. New claims came in at 448k while last week’s number was revised up 3k. New claims fell within the Bloomberg consensus range of 440k to 460k. From the report:

In the week ending April 24, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 448,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 459,000. The 4-week moving average was 462,500, an increase of 1,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 461,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6 percent for the week ending April 17, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.6 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 17 was 4,645,000, a decrease of 18,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,663,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,639,000, a decrease of 9,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,648,000.

The seasonal adjustment had no impact on the good news:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 423,286 in the week ending April 24, a decrease of 11,171 from the previous week. There were 583,457 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.7 percent during the week ending April 17, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,779,335, a decrease of 144,978 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.7 percent and the volume was 6,339,490.

These numbers are still stubbornly persisting above the 400k line. At least they’re moving in the right direction. We’ve been here before only to be disappointed.

The good / bad lists look great coming off of that bump (reminder: this data is a week delayed):

The good list (-1000 or more): NY, CA, PA, OR, NJ, IL, OH, WA, KS, TN, TX, WI, MI, AR, MO, MD

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

PR (the worst) was +3,549 vs NY (the best) at -21,010. Service and manufacturing were both well represented on the good list (manufacturing well represented in the bad list). Construction and trade also had some representation in the good list. I’m a little concerned by Florida’s absence from the good list. They felt the bump, but didn’t seem to make it over to the slope down.

Not much in the way of additional unemployment news. Now that the benefits and COBRA subsidy extension was signed into law, we get to ignore that for a few weeks. We seem to be on track for another month of positive job numbers because of the Census. I hope we make that 400k new claims line by then. Otherwise the subsequent monthly employment situation report will look just as bad as March (and soon April) looked good.

This was a good report, but it still isn’t the report we want to see. Employment stability is still at levels associated with previous recessions. Our bumps have been significant moves in the wrong direction and our progress has been slow.