Jobless Claims Climb to 524,000 for Week Ending January 10, 2009

The Department of Labor (DOL) released the weekly jobless claims report this morning at 8:30am EST. Seasonally-adjusted initial jobless claims for the week ending January 10, 2009 were 524,000. Those for the preceding week were revised upward by 3,000 to 470,000. The four-week running average was 518,500, a decline of 8,000 from the previous week. This represents the fourth week in which this value declined. Seasonally-adjusted continuing claims for the week ending January 3 were 4,497,000. The four-week running average continued to climb, reaching 4,497,750.

Recently, I did an analysis of the historical pattern of jobless claims in an effort to find signals that might mean the end of the recession is at hand. The numbers for this week offer no such evidence. Go here to read this.

For the complete DOL press release, go here.