And the news is not good, 380K initial claims, up 13K, from last weeks numbers, which were revised up 10K, with the less volatile 4-week moving average rising by 4,250 to 368,500, continuing claims falling 98K to 3.25 m, and emergency claims falling by 20.5K to 2.79m.

We’ve had some pretty good numbers since the beginning of the year, but we’ve also had an unprecedentedly mild winter, which has pushed a lot of “spring time” activities months earlier. See (Anthropogenic Climate Change)

The question now is how much did the good numbers in the first quarter of the year eat the economic activity now.