The last employment news of the year turned out to be some of the best: New jobless claims for the last week of December fell to a seasonally adjusted 388,000. That's the lowest that figure has been since July of 2008.
But seasonal adjustments, of course, are at their most drastic during the Christmas season. If you disregard the seasonal adjustment, the number of new jobless claims was actually up 25,000 over the previous week; with the seasonal adjustment, jobless claims fell by 34,000.
Even discounting any uncertainty over the adjustment, though, in the longer term, things are still positive. The four-week moving average dropped by 12,500, to 415,000, up through that last week of December. Just as with the weekly average, the four-week average is now at its lowest point since July 2008.
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