US / Jobless Claims fall, really?

The number of new U.S. jobless claims fell sharply last week but much of the decline appeared due to technical problems in claims processing, clouding the last major reading of labor market health before the Federal Reserve meets to consider reducing its stimulus for the economy.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 31,000 to a seasonally adjusted 292,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

That was the lowest level of claims since 2006, confounding analysts’ expectations for a mild increase.

But a department analyst said the majority of the decline appeared to be because two states were upgrading their computer systems and did not process all the claims they received during the week.

This is highly unusual, and the analyst declined to say which two states reported the problems. He said one of them was a large state and the other small.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via U.S. jobless claims fall; reading clouded by processing snafu | Reuters.