Job Recovery Cycle Intact

There are reasons that unemployment will remain a persistent problem for many years, but the rate of job loss is not one of those problems at this point.

The Labor Department's unemployment claims report shows that the 4-week moving average increased for the second consecutive week. This is the first rise since August and only the second up-move since the claims peaked on April 4, 2009. However, this is no cause for alarm.

The weekly initial unemployment claims data are still following the track of similar recoveries in the past 50 years. The WIUC report showed a seasonally adjusted number of 470,000 (advanced), down from 478,000 (revised) for the week of January 16. The less volatile 4-week moving average rose to 456,200. This was more than 15,000 higher than the low (440,750) reached for the week ending January 9.