Continuing Jobless Claims Disappoint As Part-Time Jobs Recover, Full-Time Lags

For some reason, the line in the sand for ‘good’ news on initial jobless claims has become 1 million. Twice in the last four weeks, there has been fewer than 1 million Americans filing for first time unemployment benefits (and before that there were 20 straight weeks well above 1 million per week).

Last week saw 884k Americans filed for first time claims – oddly the exact same as the revised higher number from the prior week…

Source: Bloomberg

But, non-seasonally-adjusted initial claims rose for the second week in a row…

Source: Bloomberg

Disappointingly, continuing claims rose week-over-week by 131k top 13.385 million…

Source: Bloomberg

In fact, as Mike Shedlock notes, since the April bottom, part-time employment has regained a much greater share of employees who were laid off.

Employment Recovery

Part-Time Employment Recovery

Full-Time Employment Recovery 

Full-time employment is up more in raw numbers but lags on a percentage basis.

Four months in, the part-time employment recovery is 68.1% vs 47.9% for full-time employment. Overall, the recovery is only 54.8%. 

Part-time employment will recover first and then some. In a few months, it may exceed 100%.