Claims data breaks out, at least for one week

Since the week ended February 2nd, initial jobless claims has remained in an extremely tight range of 208k-213k (outside of one print of 200k around President’s Day holiday) but that trend was broken in today’s figure and not in a good way. The 231k number is the highest since August 2023. There was no holiday, no seasonal adjustment change noted so something to watch just as the evidence piles up that the pace of hiring is slowing. The 4 week average rose to 215k from 210k. Continuing claims, delayed by a week, totaled 1.785mm, still hanging around the highest since November 2021.