Disappointing data on the employment front. This week’s Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims Report tells a disappointing story we’ve heard before. Just as we make new inroads on employment stability, a shock drives the numbers higher, erasing several weeks of gains. New claims came in at 471k while last week’s number was revised up 2k. New claims were well above the Bloomberg consensus range of 435k to 445k. From the report:

In the week ending May 15, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 471,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 446,000. The 4-week moving average was 453,500, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 450,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.6 percent for the week ending May 8, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.6 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending May 8 was 4,625,000, a decrease of 40,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,665,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,642,500, a decrease of 9,500 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,652,000.

There’s no good news in the above, but there’s some below. More than 100% of the move was due to a seasonal adjustment. The trend data disappoints, but the actual number of new people collecting unemployment benefits shows improvement:

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 407,940 in the week ending May 15, a decrease of 1,819 from the previous week. There were 540,925 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent during the week ending May 8, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 4,439,549, a decrease of 113,074 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.6 percent and the volume was 6,203,661.

This isn’t much of a silver lining. Seasonal adjustments determine the trend, and that’s the number we want to see move decisively below 400k. I’ll take what I can get, though.

The good / bad lists look a little worse than might be expected from last week’s flat reading:

The good list (-1000 or more): NY, KY, CT, MO

The bad list (+1000 or more): WA, FL, PR, GA, NJ, MI, CA

CA (the worst) was +8,351 vs NY (the best) at -3,144. That’s a swap from the prior week. Construction, trade, manufacturing, and service were all represented in the bad list. Each had a single mention in the good list, so there’s no obvious sector trends.

In other news, the single headline desired by the 99ers has not come to pass. Tier V benefits (99+ weeks) haven’t moved anywhere. Florida just passed an extension to bring their benefits from 79 to 99 weeks. Congress is expected to vote today to continue the federal support of the existing program. Again, that doesn’t include an extension beyond 99 weeks, but it does continue to pay for the existing extensions for the more recently unemployed.

The seasonal adjustments are going to present a headwind to the headline number. This will also be true for the monthly employment report (though not for the next report, which will be overwhelmed by census jobs). All of the disappointment in this report was due to the adjustment. Unfortunately, the trend data is the adjusted data, and that’s our signal for better times ahead. We’ve still got a way to go.