Estimates show U.S. jobless claims fell to around 215,000 last week

according to the analysis of the non-seasonally adjusted state-level initial claims data released during the US government shutdown, the number of initial claims for unemployment benefits in the US dropped last week. According to Bloomberg's analysis of the data, as of the week ending October 11, the number of initial claims was about 215,000, lower than the estimated 234,000 from the previous week. Due to the government shutdown, the US Department of Labor has not released weekly unemployment reports since September 25, but still provided downloadable data for most states. This estimate used the pre-released seasonal adjustment factors from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to adjust the raw data. When data from all states is complete, this method is highly consistent with official seasonally adjusted data. However, the latest weekly data for Arizona, Massachusetts, Nevada, and Tennessee is missing, replaced by the average of the previous four weeks. Calculations show that as of the week ending October 4, the continued claims rose slightly to 1.93 million, higher than the estimated 1.92 million from the previous week.