Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined 14,000 to a seasonally adjusted 246,000 for the week ended Jan. 28, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
Data for the prior week were revised to show 1,000 more applications received than previously reported. Claims have now been below 300,000, a threshold associated with a healthy labor market, for 100 straight weeks. That is the longest stretch since 1970, when the labor market was much smaller.*
In addition, a new report on job hires for January came in at 227,000 new jobs in January that was above expectations.** Wages grew by 2.5% (3 cents) A raise of 2.5% seems good to me, but the report considered it to be disappointing.
Each month on "Jobs Friday," the Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out a treasure trove of economic data, each of which provides its own perspective on the labor market and the employment situation. Economists look past the official unemployment rate — that 4.8 percent figure, also known as the "U-3" — to other metrics that give their own view of jobs in the country.***
One of those figures is called the U-6 rate, which has a broader definition of unemployment than does the U-3. In January, that number ticked up from 9.2 percent to 9.4 percent.***
As seen in the figure,*** the "official" unemployment measure of U-3 is back to the pre-Great Recession level; however, U-6 is still above the pre-Great Recession level. U-6 includes the unemployed, the under employed and discouraged workers.
The labor participation rate, that has been in a general decline since 2000, ticked up a bit in January and may have bottomed out.***
*http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/jobless-claims.html
** https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-added-a-robust-227-000-jobs-in-january-1486128784
*** http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/03/jobs-unemployment-rose-slightly-but-more-realistic-rate-is-higher.html
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