Jobs Market Healthy.

Initial Jobless Claims (week ended 12/19/2015)

– New Claims seasonally adjusted 267,000. Previous was 272,000
– New Claims unadjusted, totaled 319,852, an increase of 6,576 from previous
– 4-week Moving Average  272,000. Previous was  270,750

Jobless Claims moved down after rising for three weeks.  With the large seasonally adjustments for the Christmas retail season it can be difficult to see if we are measuring Jobless Claims or the accuracy of the seasonal adjustments.  In any case the jobs market is healthy.  Over the next few months what we should look at is the potential for wage inflation.  I am not saying that there will be wage inflation to an extent worthy of concern but it should be observed.  Wage inflation, unlike inflation in the price of goods, is a bigger concern because it is sticky.  Once it goes up it tends not to go down.

 

Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index  (week ended 12/20/2015)

– Index level  42.2. Previous was 40.9

This supports the rise in the University of Michigan Consumer Confidence Metric. It remains to be seen if this confidence actually translated into Consumer Spending.