The Initial Unemployment Claims report is a measure of the number of individuals in the U.S. who are filing for jobless benefits for the first time during the past week.

Insured unemployment figures, or “continuing claims”, are those Americans currently receiving unemployment benefits.

These statistics are good for measuring employment trends, but it should be noted that they leave out substantial groups such as self-employed workers, unpaid family workers, workers in certain not-for-profit organizations, and several other small (primarily seasonal) worker categories that are not covered by unemployment insurance programs.

The Department of Labor reports this week’s jobless claims numbers:

In the week ending June 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 386,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 392,000. The 4-week moving average was 386,750, a decrease of 750 from the previous week’s revised average of 387,500.

Last week’s figure was of course once again revised upwards. This is all more of the same and we seem to have leveled off just below 400,000.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.6 percent for the week ending June 16, unchanged from the prior week’s unrevised rate.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending June 16 was 3,296,000, a decrease of 15,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 3,311,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,306,000, an increase of 9,250 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,296,750.

 

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