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(CEP News) - Initial claims for unemployment benefits in the United States remained unchanged at 384k in the week ending June 21, following a slight upward revision to 384k in the previous week from an initially reported 381k. Continuing claims, however, rose to a four-year high of 3.139 million for the week ending June 14, the Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Forecasts were for initial claims to come in at 375k and for continuing claims to reach 3.105 million. This week's initial claims figure is slightly above the four-week moving average, which is now 378k. Since hitting a two-and-a-half year high of 407k in the final week of March, the number of initial claims has been relatively steady around the 370k mark, but continuing claims have been on the climb, indicating that those who have lost their jobs are finding it difficult to re-enter the labour force. This is the seventh consecutive week that continuing claims have been above the 3 million mark. The four-week moving average is now 3.103 million, up from the moving average of 3.096 million in the previous week. Prior to the release, economists from JPMorgan noted a slight decline in continuing claims in the previous report, which showed a decrease of 76,000 claims to 3.060 million, while the insured unemployment rate pulled back to 2.3% after spending one week at 2.4%. "While this decline is a positive sign, there is not yet convincing evidence that continuing claims have stabilized," they wrote in a note to clients. Following last week's report, Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said, "This is recession territory, at least if the experience of 2001 is a guide." However, First Trust's Robert Stein said initial and continuing claims signalled "sluggish growth" rather than a recession. He said only a four-week average "persistently above 400k" would give recessionary worries. By Stephen Huebl,
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, with contributions from Patrick McGee,
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