The Zhitong Finance App learned that the number of initial jobless claims in the US rebounded slightly, but it is still low, continuing to highlight the resilience of the US labor market. According to data released by the US Department of Labor on Thursday, the number of jobless claims in the US at the beginning of the week ending November 7 was 200,000, which is expected to be 195,000. The previous value was revised from 189,000 to 191,000. The number of renewed jobless claims in the US for the week ending October 31 was 1.697 million, which is expected to be 1.71 million. The previous value was revised from 1,718 million to 1,717 million. The four-week average number of jobless claims in the US until the beginning of November 7 was 195.25 million. The previous value was revised from 194.75 million to 195.25 million.
The number of initial jobless claims in the US is still near its lowest level since the 1960s. It continues to show the “low recruitment and low resolution” pattern of the US labor market, and to some extent echoes the US non-farm payrolls data for October released last week. According to data released by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics on November 6, the number of non-farm payrolls increased by 165,000 in October, far exceeding market expectations of 65,000. It is also significantly higher than the average monthly increase of 48,000 over the past 12 months; the unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 4.1%, lower than market expectations of 4.2%.
The latest initial jobless claim data is one of the regular high-frequency data before the Federal Reserve's December 8-9 interest rate meeting. After the US October CPI data released earlier this week completely exceeded expectations, the market has fully taken into account the expectation that the Fed will raise interest rates by 25 basis points in December (probability over 99%), and bets on the Fed's December rate hike of 50 basis points have also increased. Although the initial jobless claims data released on Thursday was slightly higher than expected, it is still in a historically low range, and renewals do not rise but fall. The marginal impact on the pricing of the December interest rate hike is expected to be limited. The US October PPI data to be released on Friday may be more important data affecting the market's expectations for the Fed's interest rate hike. If this data shows that inflationary pressure is still high, the market may further bet that the Fed will raise interest rates by 50 basis points in December, especially when Federal Reserve Governor Waller has previously stated that he may support a larger rate hike at the December policy meeting.