Initial weekly unemployment claims increased to 412,000, a 27,000 increase in a week. Last week was revised up to 385,000, from 382,000. The 4 week moving average increased to 395,750. We're going backward, the wrong direction for job growth.

The magic number to show job creation is at minimum, below 400,000 initial unemployment claims per week and most Economists will quote 375,000. It seems we're back to bouncing along, above the point where job creation starts.

From the jobless claims report:

In the week ending April 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 412,000, an increase of 27,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 385,000. The 4-week moving average was 395,750, an increase of 5,500 from the previous week's revised average of 390,250.

Below is the mathematical log of initial weekly unemployment claims, so one can get a better sense of the rise and fall of the numbers. A log helps remove some statistical noise, it's kind of an averaging. As we can see we have a step rise during the height of the recession, but then a leveling, not a similar decline....for a long period. Instead, we have this yo-yo bobblehead, hovering too near 400,000 every week on initial claims, never ending labor malaise for most of the time after the recession ended in July 2009. Now, notice the tail or the right of the graph, it appears a downward slope, a decline in initial claims, started to emerge in February, yet this week implies yet another bouncing workers ball uptick.

Below is the 4 week moving average, set to a logarithmic scale to remove even more statistical noise, for the last year. Again, we need the 4 week moving average to stay below 400,000 and keep dropping. Numerous economists say the number is 375,000 to show any job growth. We see a strong decline, but remember the record highs. We need this number to keep dropping, steadily.

Below is the 4 week moving average, set to a log scale, from April 1st, 2007. We are nowhere near pre-recession initial weekly unemployment claims levels.

Continuing unemployment claims dropped but bear in mind that's last week's numbers.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 2 was 3,680,000, a decrease of 58,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,738,000. The 4-week moving average was 3,728,750, a decrease of 20,750 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,749,500.

In the week ending March 26th, not seasonally adjusted, the raw number was 8,517,545 official people obtaining some sort of unemployment insurance benefit.

Here is last week's initial claims overview, where we weren't quite so duped into thinking we're really seeing good news on the jobs crisis.