Continuing Claims

While job growth remains strong, the labor market is softening; as evidence, continuing claims for unemployment are steadily rising. At the beginning of the year, they were 300,000 below the weekly average of the years 2018, 2019, and 2022. They then steadily weakened such that by the end of 23Q1 they matched the three-year average above, and by the end of 23Q2 they were 200,000 above the average.