Initial Jobless Claims Fall

Today initial jobless claims were released. The news is that they are lower than they have been for six months. CNN Money reports on this week’s unemployment report :

There were 522,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended July 11, down 47,000 to from a revised-up 569,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said. The number of claims was the lowest since the 488,000 claims reported in the week ended Jan. 3, a week that included the New Year holiday.

This might be good news for the economy. With fewer people making unemployment claims, it could be an indication that conditions are improving . However, before we get too excited, we should consider that summer is always a volatile time of year for jobs data. Also, there are concerns that the numbers are skewed since auto layoffs took place earlier in the year , rather than in the first two weeks of July.

At any rate, employment needs to improve before the economy can. Businesses can’t bring improve their cash flow if people aren’t earning enough money to buy products and services.

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