Employment and Training Administration(ETA)

--NOTE: IF YOU NEED LOW LATENCY ACCESS TO THIS DATA, PLEASE CONTINUE TO ACCESS IT THROUGH https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf. UPDATES TO THESE DATA LAG PUBLICATION BY NO LESS THAN 30 MINUTES AND ARE OFFERED AS AN ADDITIONAL MODE OF ACCESS-- Weekly unemployment insurance (UI) claims are reported by each state's Unemployment Insurance program offices. These claims may be used for monitoring workload volume, assessing state program operations, and for assessing labor market conditions. States initially report claims directly taken by the state liable for the benefit payments, regardless of where the claimant who filed the claim resided. These are the basis for the advance initial claims and continued claims reported each week. The following week initial claims and continued claims are revised based on a second reporting by states that reflect the claimants by state of residence. Initial claims are filed by an unemployed individual after a separation from an employer. The claimant requests a determination of basic eligibility for the UI program. The count of U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance is a leading economic indicator because it is an indication of emerging labor market conditions in the country. However, these are weekly administrative data which are difficult to seasonally adjust, making the series subject to some volatility. A person who has already filed an initial claim and who has experienced a week of unemployment then files a continued claim to claim benefits for that week of unemployment. On a weekly basis, continued claims (are also referred to as insured unemployment), reflect a good approximation of the current number of insured unemployed workers filing for UI benefits. The count of U.S. continued weeks claimed is also a good indicator of labor market conditions. While continued claims are not a leading indicator (they roughly coincide with economic cycles at their peaks and lag at cycle troughs), they provide confirming evidence of the direction of the U.S. economy.