The Department of Labor's (DOL) measure of initial jobless claims for the week ending February 20th was reported today as a seasonally-adjusted 496,000 vs. an expected 460,000 from consensus.

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DOL:





SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending Feb. 20, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 496,000, an increase of 22,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 474,000. The 4-week moving average was 473,750, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised average of 467,750.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 3.5 percent for the week ending Feb. 13, unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate of 3.5 percent.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Feb. 13 was 4,617,000, an increase of 6,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,611,000. The 4-week moving average was 4,600,750, an increase of 4,250 from the preceding week's revised average of 4,596,500.

The fiscal year-to-date average for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment for all programs is 5.209 million.

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 452,468 in the week ending Feb. 20, a decrease of 25,767 from the previous week. There were 605,668 initial claims in the comparable week in 2009.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.2 percent during the week ending Feb. 13, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,527,142, a decrease of 70,546 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 4.6 percent and the volume was 6,108,398.

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The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Feb. 6 were in Alaska (7.5 percent), Oregon (6.5), Idaho (6.4), Montana (6.2), Wisconsin (6.2), Michigan (5.9), Puerto Rico (5.9), Nevada (5.8), Pennsylvania (5.7), and North Carolina (5.5).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Feb. 13 were in North Carolina (+5,897), Pennsylvania (+2,813), Kentucky (+2,510), Virginia (+559), and Puerto Rico (+468), while the largest decreases were in California (-5,540), Illinois (-3,858), New York (-2,747), Texas (-2,636), and Missouri (-2,534).

Read the official release here >