Krugman: Unemployment Claims and Employment Growth [View All]

Unemployment Claims and Employment Growth

This is mainly an excuse to play with some of the features of FRED, the wonderful data site of the St. Louis Fed. On the horizontal axis are quarterly averages of weekly new claims for unemployment insurance over the past decade. On the vertical axis are quarterly changes in nonfarm payrolls. If I had been more careful, I would have taken out the Census jobs somehow, or just done private payrolls. Anyway, yes there is a strong relationship. The recent fall in unemployment claims bodes well for positive job growth; however, we’d really want to see numbers in the low 300s or below; only then would we be seeing the kind of job growth needed to climb out of our deep jobs hole in any reasonable length of time.

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