Unemployment weekly or weakly?

The numbers were out this morning for the weekly new unemployment claims. I first heard the news from CBS Radio which breathlessly proclaimed that the numbers were the best in seven weeks but did not say what they were. As it turns out, the number was 418,000 new claims last week. That is far from good. Indeed, it close the end of a quarter of a year during which the number was in excess each week of the 400,000 figure. With the figure above 400,000 claims, there is little chance that we will see any meaningful job growth for June when the report is issued tomorrow. Now do not get me wrong. We may see a report tomorrow that claims that private sector jobs were created, and there may be a significant number of jobs listed. The real question, however, is how many actual jobs are discovered and how many of the creations are the result of the so-called birth/death adjustment. That adjustment is meant to take into account new businesses that are being created in the economy. In other words, the government does not survey these businesses but it estimates how many there are and how many people are being hired based upon historical "data". Recently, the actual jobs counted were down by about 150,000 but the number was reported as up 50,000 based upon the "adjustment". For some reason, the government assumes that the biggest increases in new jobs due to the birth death adjustment comes in the Spring. It will be interesting to see the actual numbers tomorrow.