Jobless Claims

The jobless claims figure measure the number of new unemployment claims in a given week. This is used to discover if the trend is for a worsening of the labor market with an increase in new claims or an improvement with a decrease in new claims.

A healthy market does not have zero unemployment. There should always be some people unemployed otherwise companies will not be able to find workers and this will lead to pressure on wage increases (which are sticky down but not up) and this leads to inflation.

This figure is release on Thursdays by the Employment and Training Administration, United States Department of Labor and is for the week ending on the previous Saturday.

Check the Economic Events Calendar to see if this or other announcements are taking place in the next 5 days.