Unemployment Claims for the Week Ending December 20, 2008

Non seasonally adjusted figures. 
This is not the same as headline figures which are seasonally adjusted.

The advance number of actual initial claims for the week ending December 20, 2008, unadjusted, totaled 715,496 in the week ending December 20, an increase of 85,629 from the previous week.

The advance, unadjusted, continuing claims or number of persons claiming unemployment insurance benefits totaled 4,592,793, for the week ending December 13, 2008.  This is an increase of 214,520 from the preceding week.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.4 percent during the week ending December 13, 2008, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week.  A year earlier, the rate was 2.1 percent and the volume was 2,813,055.

Key trends and figures for non adjusted continuing claims:

Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for December 13, 2008 was 4,592,793
Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for December 6, 2008 was 4,378,273
Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for November 29, 2008 was 4,493,526
Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for November 22, 2008 was 3,652,990
Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for November 15, 2008 was 3,782,040

Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for December 22, 2007 was 2,812,156
Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for December 23, 2006 was 2,654,693
Non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for December 24, 2005 was 2,823,270

Continuing claims on a non seasonally adjusted basis reached these levels briefly in 2002 when non seasonally adjusted continuing claims for January 5, 2002 was 4,685,080

Seasonally adjusted numbers.

Seasonally adjusted figures for the week ending December 20, advance initial claims was 586,000, an increase of 30,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 556,000.  The 4-week moving average was 558,000, an increase of 13,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 544,250.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.3 percent for the week ending December 13, which was unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate of 3.3 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending December 13 was 4,370,000, a decrease of 17,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4,387,000.  The 4-week moving average was 4,319,750, an increase of 93,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,226,750.

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