Labor Department Issues Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims for Week Ending April 7

WASHINGTON, April 9 -- The U.S. Department of Labor issued the following news release:

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REVISION TO SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT FACTORS

Beginning with the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Weekly Claims News Release issued Thursday, April 7, 2022, the methodology used to seasonally adjust the national initial claims and continued claims reflects a change in the estimation of the models. Seasonal adjustment factors can be either multiplicative or additive. A multiplicative seasonal effect is assumed to be proportional to the level of the series. A sudden large increase in the level of the series will be accompanied by a proportionally large seasonal effect. In contrast, an additive seasonal effect is assumed to be unaffected by the level of the series. In times of relative economic stability, the multiplicative option is generally preferred over the additive option.

However, in the presence of a large level shift in a time series, multiplicative seasonal adjustment factors can result in systematic over- or under-adjustment of the series; in such cases, additive seasonal adjustment factors are preferred since they tend to track seasonal fluctuations more accurately in the series and have smaller revisions. Prior to the pandemic, the unemployment insurance claims series used multiplicative models to seasonally adjust the claims. Starting in March 2020, Bureau of Labor Statistics staff, who provide the seasonal adjustment factors, specified these series as additive.

Now that most of the large effects of the pandemic on the UI series have lessened, the seasonal adjustment models are once again specified as multiplicative models. Statistical tests show that the UI series should, in normal times, be estimated multiplicatively. While the pandemic period remains within the five-year revision period, the UI series will use a hybrid adjustment approach. For the most volatile economic periods of the pandemic, the series will continue to be additively adjusted for the revised series. Before and after these periods, the series will be adjusted multiplicatively. For consistency, all seasonal factors on our website are now shown as multiplicative where any additive factors were converted to implicit multiplicative factors. Note that in recent weeks, beyond the most volatile period of the series, any changes from additive to multiplicative can result in one-time larger revisions to the seasonally adjusted estimates than usual. For further questions on the seasonal adjustment methodology, please see the official release page for the UI claims seasonal adjustment factors or contact BLS directly through the Local Area Unemployment Statistics web contact form.

View form here: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20220407

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UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS SEASONALLY ADJUSTED DATA

In the week ending April 2, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 166,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised down by 31,000 from 202,000 to 171,000. The 4-week moving average was 170,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised down by 30,500 from 208,500 to 178,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.1 percent for the week ending March 26, unchanged from the previous week's revised rate. The previous week's rate was revised up by 0.2 from 0.9 to 1.1 percent. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 26 was 1,523,000, an increase of 17,000 from the previous week's revised level. The previous week's level was revised up 199,000 from 1,307,000 to 1,506,000. The 4-week moving average was 1,541,250, a decrease of 35,250 from the previous week's revised average. The previous week's average was revised up by 187,500 from 1,389,000 to 1,576,500.

UNADJUSTED DATA

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 193,137 in the week ending April 2, a decrease of 3,674 (or -1.9 percent) from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected an increase of 2,054 (or 1.0 percent) from the previous week. There were 668,346 initial claims in the comparable week in 2021.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent during the week ending March 26, unchanged from the prior week. The advance unadjusted level of insured unemployment in state programs totaled 1,650,788, a decrease of 20,365 (or -1.2 percent) from the preceding week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 39,144 (or -2.3 percent) from the previous week. A year earlier the rate was 2.8 percent and the volume was 4,002,030.

The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending March 19 was 1,723,024, a decrease of 52,806 from the previous week. There were 18,387,297 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2021.

During the week ending March 19, Extended Benefits were available in the following state: New Jersey.

Initial claims for UI benefits filed by former Federal civilian employees totaled 489 in the week ending March 26, a decrease of 10 from the prior week. There were 338 initial claims filed by newly discharged veterans, a decrease of 38 from the preceding week.

There were 8,777 continued weeks claimed filed by former Federal civilian employees the week ending March 19, a decrease of 952 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 4,331, a decrease of 299 from the prior week.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending March 19 were in California (2.4), New Jersey (2.4), Alaska (2.2), Illinois (2.1), Rhode Island (2.1), Massachusetts (2.0), Minnesota (2.0), New York (1.9), and the Virgin Islands (1.7). The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending March 26 were in Ohio (+3,580), Michigan (+3,545), California (+3,256), Texas (+2,251), and New York (+761), while the largest decreases were in Kentucky (-2,034), Pennsylvania (-732), Tennessee (-235), Florida (-165), and Connecticut (-138).

View charts and tables here: https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/eta/eta20220407

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TECHNICAL NOTES

This news release presents the weekly unemployment insurance (UI) claims reported by each state's unemployment insurance program offices. These claims may be used for monitoring workload volume, assessing state program operations and for assessing labor market conditions. States initially report claims directly taken by the state liable for the benefit payments, regardless of where the claimant who filed the claim resided. These are the basis for the advance initial claims and continued claims reported each week. These data come from ETA 538, Advance Weekly Initial and Continued Claims Report. The following week initial claims and continued claims are revised based on a second reporting by states that reflect the claimants by state of residence. These data come from the ETA 539, Weekly Claims and Extended Benefits Trigger Data Report.

A.Initial Claims

An initial claim is a claim filed by an unemployed individual after a separation from an employer. The claimant requests a determination of basic eligibility for the UI program. When an initial claim is filed with a state, certain programmatic activities take place and these result in activity counts including the count of initial claims. The count of U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance is a leading economic indicator because it is an indication of emerging labor market conditions in the country. However, these are weekly administrative data which are difficult to seasonally adjust, making the series subject to some volatility.

B.Continued Weeks Claimed

A person who has already filed an initial claim and who has experienced a week of unemployment then files a continued claim to claim benefits for that week of unemployment. On a weekly basis, continued claims are also referred to as insured unemployment, as continued claims reflect a good approximation of the current number of insured unemployed workers filing for UI benefits. The count of U.S. continued weeks claimed is also a good indicator of labor market conditions. While continued claims are not a leading indicator (they roughly coincide with economic cycles at their peaks and lag at cycle troughs), they provide confirming evidence of the direction of the U.S. economy.

C.Seasonal Adjustments and Annual Revisions

Over the course of a year, the weekly changes in the levels of initial claims and continued claims undergo regularly occurring fluctuations. These fluctuations may result from seasonal changes in weather, major holidays, the opening and closing of schools, or other similar events. Because these seasonal events follow a more or less regular pattern each year, their influence on the level of a series can be tempered by adjusting for regular seasonal variation. These adjustments make trend and cycle developments easier to spot. At the beginning of each calendar year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics provides the Employment and Training Administration (ETA) with a set of seasonal factors to apply to the unadjusted data during that year. Concurrent with the implementation and release of the new seasonal factors, ETA incorporates revisions to the UI claims historical series caused by updates to the unadjusted data. For further questions on the seasonal adjustment methodology, please see the official release page for the UI claims seasonal adjustment factors or contact BLS directly through the Local Area Unemployment Statistics web contact form.

2017_2022_seasonal_factors.txt

2017_2022_seasonal_factors.xlsx