Pandemic Emergency Jobless Claims Soar To Record High

With California’s fraudulent data issues ‘fixed’, initial jobless claims data is at least a little cleaner and printed a better than expected 751k – that’s the best level since pre-lockdown. Reminder, however, that this is still around 4x the pre-lockdown normal.

Source: Bloomberg

Continuing claims fell back below 8 million, its lowest level since pre-lockdowns…

Source: Bloomberg

Total Claims fell WoW…

Source: Bloomberg

But Pandemic Emergency Jobless Claims surged once again…

Source: Bloomberg

Sadly, as Peter Schiff recently noted, a lot of the people who have gone back to work in recent weeks will eventually find themselves in the unemployment line again.

I think a lot of these people who have been recalled, who have come back to work, I think ultimately their employers are going to realize, after the fact, that they don’t really need a lot of these workers, and a lot of these workers are going to be re-fired. Except next time it is going to be permanent, not temporary.”

Lockdowns and the government/central bank response to the ensuing economic fallout may havepermanently scarred the labor market and there are signs of deep wounds that won’t quickly heal. In a nutshell, a lot of people will likely never return to work.