US: Weekly Initial Jobless Claims decline to 228K vs. 200K expected

• Initial Jobless Claims in the US decreased by 18,000 in the week ending April 1.
• US Dollar Index continues to fluctuate in daily range at around 102.00.

There were 228,000 initial jobless claims in the week ending April 1, the weekly data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) showed on Thursday. This print followed the previous week's print of 246,000 (revised from 191,000) and came in worse than the market expectation of 200,000.

Further details of the publication revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.3% and the 4-week moving average was 237,750, a decrease of 4,250 from the previous week's revised average.

"The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 25 was 1,823,000, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level," the DOL further added.

It's worth noting that the DOL announced a revision to seasonal adjustment factors starting with this data.

"Beginning with the Unemployment Insurance (UI) Weekly Claims News Release issued Thursday, April 6, 2023, the methodology used to seasonally adjust the national initial claims and continued claims reflects a change in the estimation of the models," the DOL said in its press release.

Market reaction

The US Dollar Index clings to its daily recovery gains at around 102.00 after this report.