US Claims Better Than Expected

That's a very decent drop in weekly initial jobless claims in week to Oct 2 to 326k (-38k when accounting for prior week revision), and in continuing claims in the week to Sep 25 (drop of 97k to 2,714k) - both below expectations. Continuing claims set a new post-Mar 2020 low; cycle low for initial remains 312k in Sep 3 week.

• While a little more dated, the continuing claims data continue to show progress vs the depths of the pandemic. For the week ending Sep 18, 854k dropped off continuing claims, 772k of which were coming off Pandemic Unemp Assistance (-411k to 647k, with California accounting for 177k of the drop) and Pandemic Emergency Unemp Compensation (-361k to 631k, with California's 400k making up nearly 2/3 of the remaining claims).
• "The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending September 18 was 4,172,943, a decrease of 854,638 from the previous week. There were 24,609,335 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2020."
• Note that while Pandemic Unemp Assistance claims ended the first week of September, there may have been some backdated claims filed in some states.
• Treasuries a little weaker and the USD marginally stronger on the data, which don't really have any impact on the outlook for Friday's more important nonfarm payrolls release.
• Full release: https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf