Unexpectedly, the number of initial jobless claims for the week ended Jan. 27 surged by 9,000 to 224,000. This marked a notable deviation from the anticipated 213,000 and the previous week’s revised figure of 215,000 (initially reported as 214,000).
The four-week moving average settled at 207,750, reflecting an increase of 5,250 from the revised range of the preceding week.
Meanwhile, continuing claims amounted to 1.898 million, surpassing the expected 1.840 million and the previous week’s 1.828 million (revised from 1.833 million).
Additionally, the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate reached 1.3% for the week concluding on Jan. 20. This represented an uptick of 0.1 percentage point from the unchanged rate of the prior week, as per the Department of Labor’s report.
Moreover, the advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, on an unadjusted basis, totaled 261,029 for the week ended Jan. 27. This recorded an increase of 11,082, or 4.4%, from the previous week, contrary to the anticipated stability in the unadjusted data, as projected by seasonal factors.