The chart comes from the U.S. Department of Labor via econbrowser.com. The black line is seasonally adjusted new claims for unemployment insurance, weekly since January, 2009. The blue line is the average of the four most recent weeks as of each date. While this data would suggest that the rate of job loss is slowing, a big question is how this will be affected by possible auto company bankruptcies.
Source: www.econbrowser.com
On April 30, 2009, the U.S. Departmentof Labor reported that initial claims for unemployment insurance fell by 14,000 during the most recent available week. That brings the four-week average down for the third consecutive week and puts it 3.3% below the peak reached April 9.