Initial Jobless Claims Tumble Back Near Multi-Decade Lows

Despite the ongoing worsening trend in some labor market condition indicators – Payrolls revisions ugly, JOLTs are tumbling, Survey-based data showing jobs hard to get far worse than jobs plentiful – the number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time fell to 206k (from 229k the prior week)…

Source: Bloomberg

That is back near multi-decade lows and at the lowest end of the range of the last five years.

Continuing jobless claims rose modestly (from 1.852mm to 1.869mm) but remains well below the 1.9mm Maginot Line…

So, should we just be ignoring surveys completely now?

Or are we solidly back in the ‘no hire, no fire’ economy?