WTF Is Going On With The Jobless Claims Data…

In the real world labor market, 2024 has been a shitshow of layoffs…

1. Twitch: 35% of workforce
2. Roomba: 31% of workforce
3. Hasbro: 20% of workforce
4. LA Times: 20% of workforce
5. Spotify: 17% of workforce
6. Levi’s: 15% of workforce
7. Xerox: 15% of workforce
8. Qualtrics: 14% of workforce
9. Wayfair: 13% of workforce
10. Duolingo: 10% of workforce
11. Washington Post: 10% of workforce
12: Snap: 10% of workforce
13. eBay: 9% of workforce
14. Business Insider: 8% of workforce
15. Paypal: 7% of workforce
16. Okta: 7% of workforce
17. Charles Schwab: 6% of workforce
18. Docusign: 6% of workforce
19: CISCO: 5% of workforce
20. UPS: 2% of workforce
21. Nike: 2% of workforce
22. Blackrock: 3% of workforce
23. Paramount: 3% of workforce
24. Citigroup: 20,000 employees
25. Pixar: 1,300 employees

But, according to the government-supplied data…

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the first time last week rose from 202k to 215k (SA) while claims declined on an NSA basis to four month lows…

Source: Bloomberg

Massachussetts and Rhode Island saw the biggest increases in claims (NSA) last week, while Oklahoma and Oregon saw the biggest declines…

Continuing Claims ticked back above 1.9mm for the first time since November…

Source: Bloomberg

And WARNs have surged recently as claims haven’t…

As a reminder, if you doubt the accuracy of the Biden admin’s data, here’s what the most recent FOMC Minutes said:

“While the recent trends prior to the meeting had been remarkably positive, Fed officials judged that some of the recent improvement “reflected idiosyncratic movements in a few series.”

Even they aren’t buying it.

But, Pantheon Macro expects that to change soon…

“Claims are still very low by historical standards.

We expect that to change soon.

The WARN numbers, capturing advance notice of plant closures and mass layoffs, have jumped recently and point to initial claims rising significantly over the next few months”

Of course, we know the solution…

Dear BLS: you’re going to have to rig state level WARN data next cause it’s, well, diverging pic.twitter.com/YWvyULOqNQ

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 23, 2024

Ah, Bidenomics!!