Yesterday, before the inevitable House denouement, we had a prophetic observation:
No matter what happens tonight, tomorrow's initial claims number will still be idiotic
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) October 16, 2013 [2]
They sure were...
Moments ago the DOL, announced that in the week ending October 12 [3], there were some 358K initial claims filed, a drop from last week's ridiculous 374K, but well above expectations of 335K. Of course, expectations no longer matter because as the DOL was also kind enough to observe, the agency, for the 6th consecutive week, is unable to conclude the California computer upgrade backlog, and is still working through it, although we now know that in the last week there was an increase of 33,654 claims which reflects a "backlog of claims which could not be processed previously." This farce continues.
The DOL added that:
As a result of the lapse in federal appropriations, initial claims for UI benefits filed by former Federal civilian employees (UCFE) totaled 70,068 in the week ending October 5, an increase of 68,677 from the prior week. The states with the highest number of UCFE claims were Maryland (17,368), Texas (7,191), Pennsylvania (4,416), Utah (3,978) and Washington (3,380). There were 3,382 initial claims filed by newly discharged veterans, an increase of 1,285 from the preceding week.
There were 19,586 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending September 28, a decrease of 334 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 34,934, an increase of 3,293 from the prior week.
We have some bad news for all those Federal civilians who filed for claims previously: those claims will now have to be refunded. Of course, it is not like anyone expected that to happen...
The DOL also said that it cannot really estimate how many non-federal workers filed claims and that non-federal workers claims were "probably" less than 15,000.
In the meantime, the market "probably" no longer even gives a rat's ass about what is openly made up and laughable DOL data has become.