Jobless Claims

There are two closely watched numbers released every Thursday by the US Department of Labor. Initial claims count people filing for unemployment benefits for the first time that week — a fresh signal of layoffs. Continuing claims (also called "insured unemployment") count people who filed the previous week and are still receiving benefits — a measure of how long it takes the unemployed to find new work. Both are reported with roughly a one-week lag, making them among the most timely labor market indicators available.

Because the series is weekly, it is noisy — a holiday weekend, a natural disaster, or a one-off mass layoff at a single large employer can spike a single week's reading without signaling a broader trend. Economists typically smooth this by watching the four-week moving average (the average of the most recent four weekly readings), which irons out short-term distortions. A sustained move upward in that average is what markets historically treat as a warning sign.

Initial claims are a leading indicator, meaning they tend to move before the broader economy does — layoffs often precede a slowdown by weeks or months. They complement slower-moving monthly data like nonfarm payrolls and the unemployment rate by providing weekly checkpoints between those releases. Release dates appear on the economic calendar, and the data feeds into how markets read the health of financial markets more broadly.