Unemployment insurance claims

Thursday's ETA report showed that unemployment insurance claims rose in mid-April, potentially bad news for those of us who have been predicting big gains in employment this month. Both initial claims and continuing claims have flattened a bit in recent months:

But all is not lost. The WSJ reports that April's UI figures are lower than they should be because of Easter and a "special holiday" in California (is that what they call it when they have to shut the whole state down because of the budget crisis?). The WSJ report repeats the canard that initial claims "have to drop to 400,000 or lower to indicate an accelerated hiring trend." Not true, at least based on the experience of recent recoveries, as I've noted in earlier posts. Compare the current recovery to the one following the 1981-82 recession:

The black line at August 1983 shows the point in the recovery comparable to where we are now. At that time initial claims were at about the same level as they are now (450,000 or so) and squiggling up a bit. Nevertheless, 1983 was a pretty good year for job creation (3.5 million jobs created!). We're well behind the pace set in 1983, but it still looks like a much stronger recovery than we had after the last two recessions.