Employment Thursday

The number of initial unemployment claims was 502,000 a decrease of 12,000 from last week. This brings the 4 week-moving average to 519,750.

We are seeing regular and consistent downward moves of this number with every release. While it is still in the "losing jobs" side, we could see that change very soon.

If we look at the Unadjusted Data in the report, we see that the economy is improving in patches. Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and Texas actually saw the largest increases in initial unemployment claims. California, Florida, Georgia, New York, and North Carolina saw the largest decreases in initial unemployment claims.

In the spirit of prediction, I expect employment will level off in the next 3-6 months (anywhere from mid January to mid April). I don't expect to see job growth before 5 months from now (March), and it could be as far off as a year from now.