The U.S. Labor Department played catch up today and filled in all the missing data on weekly initial unemployment claims all the way back to early December. For those of you who are keeping track of this data, here are the numbers starting with the last reported figure just before the government shutdown:

       Week Ended:  12/9   12/16   12/23   12/30   1/6    1/13
Claims(thousands):   339    370     378     372    394     327

The most-recent figure of 327,000 is the lowest reading since last July. But, the Labor Department believes that the sharp drop-off was at least partially due to the Great Blizzard of '96. The most-recent value for the four-week moving average of new jobless claims was 367,750 -- up 8.88% from the same period a year ago.

While new claims appear to be on the rise, the total number of people receiving unemployment insurance payments has been dropping. In the week ended January 6, the insured unemployment figure stood at 2.377 million. This was down 219,000 from the preceding week which, in turn, was down 230,000 from the week before that. As recently as November 25, the rate of insured unemployment stood at 2.4%. The January 6 rate was 2.1%, the lowest reading since September 30, 1989.

Meanwhile, our old friends at the Philly Fed released the results of their January Business Outlook Survey. After five months of mostly positive readings, many of the survey's indicators of current business conditions turned negative.

The comprehensive Current General Activity Index moved from +11.3 in December to -16.6 this month. In the same time period, the New Orders Index fell from +7.1 to -20.0, the Unfilled Orders Index dropped from -5.4 to -36.1 and the Delivery Times Index slumped from -1.6 to -11.1.

The Current Employment Index has been in negative territory for nine of the last ten months. This month's -10.5 figure was about the same as last month's reading of -11.5.

The Current Prices Received Index has been negative for six of the last eight months and this month's reading of -11.7 is the lowest in nearly four years.

All in all, the January survey results point to a general slackening of manufacturing activity in Pennsylvania and Southern New Jersey.

Byline: Lafferty (MF Merlin)