Initial jobless claims

Initial jobless claims, or simply jobless claims, count the new applications for unemployment benefits filed in a given week in the United States. The Department of Labor publishes them every Thursday at 8:30 a.m. New York time, which is 2:30 p.m. in Paris most of the year, for the week ended the previous Saturday; when Thursday is a holiday, as with Thanksgiving, the release is usually moved up to Wednesday. The same report includes Continuing Claims, the number of people already on the rolls who are still claiming benefits, with a one-week lag. Because the weekly figure is noisy, markets also follow its 4-week average. Claims are a timely barometer of layoffs: a sustained rise often precedes a higher unemployment rate and a weaker NFP, which can lead markets to anticipate Fed rate cuts. Step-by-step reading: the guide to economic releases; upcoming releases: the economic calendar.