Thursday, February 23, 2006
Jobless claims
Every Thursday morning at 08:30, the previous week's jobless claims are announced...
You can read the story at CBS MarketWatch . Here are some significant paragraphs:
"The four-week average of new claims -- which smoothes out distortions created by one-time events such as weather -- fell by 1,500 to 281,750, close to the six-year low of 276,750 seen two weeks ago."
"The four-week average is about 40,000 below the trend that prevailed for much of 2005."
"New claims are down about 9% since this time last year. Continuing claims are down about 7% year-over-year."
"The four-week average of continuing claims fell by 19,500 to 2.5 million, the lowest since February 2001, the month before the recession began five years ago."
