New Claims Data: Stuck on a Plateau

As blog readers will know, we have followed the data on new weekly claims for unemployment insurance benefits in California to monitor the state of the labor market and as an index of economic trends. 

We expressed hope in last Thursday's release that the data would continue to show a downward trend. But the most recent data for the week ending March 27 instead shows an upward bump. We seem, in short to be on a plateau. Our weekly chart is below:

The latest data are (always) at https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf.