Texas Sparks Unexpected Surge In Jobless Claims To Highest In 4 Years

Time’s Up!

After four years of showing no signs of life, initial jobless claims surged higher last week with 263,000 American filing for jobless benefits for the first time – the most since Oct 2021…

Source: Bloomberg

Under the hood, Texas massively dominated the surge in jobless claims last week (we are struggling to figure out why)…

The spike in Texas looks anomalous (still no details)…

Continuing claims remain above 1.9 million Americans – also the highest in four years…

Source: Bloomberg

Tiffany Wilding, an economist at Pimco, tells Bloomberg Television:

“We are getting what we expected on inflation. The more concerning news from the data this morning is a jump in claims.

“It has been relatively contained, despite the labor market really slowing to a halt over the last year. and now the jump in claims today looks a little more concerning. We are moving out of a period of very little activity or very little hiring or firing to potentially some more separations. That is going to be super concerning, for the Federal Reserve.”

…get back to work Mr.Powell!