The US Department of Labor published on Thursday The number of new claims for unemployment benefits increased by 28,000 in the week of June 3 to a seasonally adjusted 261,000., representing its highest reading since October 2021. The FactSet analyst consensus expected a lower reading of 240,000 new requests. Thus, this variable has been increasing continuously for 3 weeks now. The moving average of this variable, which measures week-to-week volatility, increased from 7,500 requests to 237,250 requests for the past four weeks.
At the same time, continued claims for unemployment benefitsincluding people who have received unemployment benefits for a week or more, Decreased to 1,757 million in the week ending May 27, 2023, up from 1,794 million in the previous week. In this case, analysts had expected a higher figure of 1.8 million requests.
The number of new requests for weekly unemployment benefits by members of the Federal Reserve (Fed) will be “good”, as they point to a progressive cooling of the US labor market, factors that can help control high inflation, The data was initially poorly received by bond markets and by equity markets, with investors again speculating about a possible slowdown in the US economy. Following this, US stocks rallied, encouraged by falling bond yields.
