Rolling coverage of the latest economic and financial news
- Latest: US initial jobless claims drop, but still high
- UK factories fear supply and labour shortages
- Markets rally on Biden $1.9trn stimulus hopes
- Wall Street hit record highs last night
- Pound at eight-month high vs euro; 32-month high vs dollar
Here’s more detail and reaction to the jobless figures, first from Dr Thomas Kevin Swift of the American Chemistry Council:
The number of new #jobless claims fell by 26,000 to 900,000 during the week ending 16 January. Continuing claims fell by 127,000 to 5.05 million and the #unemployment rate for the week ending 16 January eased 0.1 percentage points to 3.6%. pic.twitter.com/QiXUke55dj
Initial #unemployment claims fell back modestly in w-e Jan 16, but they remain alarmingly elevated.
Regular claims:
900k (SA): ⬇️26k
961k (NSA): ⬇️151k
PUA claims (NSA):
424k: ⬆️139k
Still very high 1.4 million **new** jobless benefits claimants! pic.twitter.com/0bHsAgF3mP
Big drop in continuing claims for PUA and PEUC last week. But that week is the one after the one day lag caused by Trump not signing the legislation and I think its possible that people got dropped because of that. Or did people age out of the programs pic.twitter.com/u5b7Or9gz1
Kathy Bostjancic of Oxford Economics says there is some good news in this week’s US jobless report, but the number of people seeking help overall is little changed:
Regular initial jobless claims (SA) fall 26k to still high 900K and continuing claims -127K to 5.05mn in the latest weeks. And overall individuals on benefits fall to 16.4mn from 18mn. Some good news, but total initial jobless claims (NSA) were little changed at a high 1.38mn pic.twitter.com/99V2zJ5aKy