Initial claims were expected to rise modestly to 355k from last week's noisy 344k print (which was revised up) but instead (seasonally-adjusted of course) they improved to 340k (from a revised 347k). However, non-seasonally-adjusted claims rose at their fastest rate of the year. Adding further confusing salt to the wound, as we noted here [2], it seems Okun's Law is broken, with productivity dropping at its fastest since Dec 2008, unit labor costs surging at their fastest since in 11 months - and all with GDP going nowhere and initial claims improving.
Non-Seasonally-adjusted claims surged the most in 2013...
as Productivity and labor costs diverged...
[3]
Charts: Bloomberg