This morning’s jobless claims numbers rose 12k to 372k from 360k, which was better than expected. It reflects two weeks of data and after the last report, in which 19 states worth of data was omitted, this is a real positive for the economy. With Hurricane Sandy no longer affecting the data, we’re seeing a continuing trend of improvement in the labor market that we believe will continue through February despite the seasonality distortion (i.e. holiday hiring), which does play into the numbers.
