Before taking a look at the monthly jobs data, let's take a look at weekly claims. The US Department of Labor is reporting Initial Unemployment Insurance Claims continue to rise.



Seasonally Adjusted



In the week ending June 28, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 404,000, an increase of 16,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 388,000. The 4-week moving average was 390,500, an increase of 11,250 from the previous week's revised average of 379,250.



Unadjusted



The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 368,876 in the week ending June 28, an increase of 10,503 from the previous week. There were 300,348 initial claims in the comparable week in 2007.

Jobs Decline 6th Consecutive Months

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to trend down in June (-62,000), while the unemployment rate held at 5.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment continued to fall in construction, manufacturing, and employment services, while health care and mining added jobs. Average hourly earnings rose by 6 cents, or 0.3 percent, over the month.

Establishment Data

Highlights

43,000 construction jobs were lost

33,000 manufacturing jobs were lost

8,000 retail trade jobs were lost

51,000 professional and business services jobs were lost



7,000 service providing jobs were added

24,000 leisure and hospitality jobs were added



29,000 government jobs were added



Birth/Death Model From Alternate Universe

BLS Black Box

The net birth/death model component figures are unique to each month and exhibit a seasonal pattern that can result in negative adjustments in some months. These models do not attempt to correct for any other potential error sources in the CES estimates such as sampling error or design limitations.

Note that the net birth/death figures are not seasonally adjusted, and are applied to not seasonally adjusted monthly employment links to determine the final estimate.

The most significant potential drawback to this or any model-based approach is that time series modeling assumes a predictable continuation of historical patterns and relationships and therefore is likely to have some difficulty producing reliable estimates at economic turning points or during periods when there are sudden changes in trend.

Table A-12

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