U.S. Initial Jobless Claims — Weekly
New claims for state unemployment insurance each week, seasonally adjusted: one of the timeliest readings of layoffs in the U.S. economy.
Official statisticSource figures as of October 16, 2026Sources & methods
- Period covered
- Jan 7, 1967 – Oct 10, 2026
- Source figures as of
- October 16, 2026
- Geography
- United States
- Sector
- Whole economy (not a single sector)
- Seasonal adjustment
- Seasonally adjusted
- Transformations
- Views other than the level (changes, averages, volatility) are calculated by CK Economics from these figures
- Revisions
- Replaced with the source’s latest figures whenever it revises them.
- Data status
- Current
Key figures
CK estimateClaims · calculated by CK Economics from U.S. Employment and Training Administration data
- Latest · Oct 10, 2026
- 199,000
- −10.4% vs a year earlier1
- 5-year change
- −31.6%
- since Oct 9, 2021, −7.3% a year2
- 10-year change
- −20.4%
- since Oct 8, 2016, −2.3% a year2
- Record high
- 6,137,000
- Apr 4, 20203
- Record low
- 162,000
- Nov 30, 19683
- Where the latest ranks
- 2nd pct.
- Higher than 2% of the other 3,118 observations since Jan 7, 19674
- 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
- 2Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier; the yearly rate is the compound annual growth rate over the span.
- 3Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
- 4Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.
Methodology
The number of initial claims for unemployment insurance filed under state programs in the week, seasonally adjusted, as published every Thursday by the Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration. Each week is dated by the Saturday it ends on. The latest week is an advance figure, revised the following week; seasonal factors are revised each spring. Claims count people filing, not people losing jobs: eligibility rules and filing changes move them too (the 2020 pandemic weeks are by far the highest on record). Values are read from FRED's copy of the series.
Source
U.S. Employment and Training Administration (Department of Labor), Initial Claims (ICSA), seasonally adjusted, via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/ICSA and https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp — figures as published on 16 October 2026.
All data
| Period | Value | Change y/y |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 10, 2026 | 199,000 | −10.4% |
| Oct 3, 2026 | 198,000 | −15.0% |
| Sep 26, 2026 | 199,000 | −11.6% |
| Sep 19, 2026 | 198,000 | −9.6% |
| Sep 12, 2026 | 198,000 | −15.0% |
| Sep 5, 2026 | 207,000 | −20.1% |
| Aug 29, 2026 | 207,000 | −12.3% |
| Aug 22, 2026 | 204,000 | −10.9% |
| Aug 15, 2026 | 207,000 | −11.2% |
| Aug 8, 2026 | 212,000 | −5.4% |
| Aug 1, 2026 | 200,000 | −11.5% |
| Jul 25, 2026 | 198,000 | −9.6% |
| Jul 18, 2026 | 189,000 | −13.3% |
| Jul 11, 2026 | 209,000 | −5.4% |
| Jul 4, 2026 | 217,000 | −4.8% |
| Jun 27, 2026 | 217,000 | −6.1% |
| Jun 20, 2026 | 216,000 | −8.5% |
| Jun 13, 2026 | 227,000 | −6.6% |
| Jun 6, 2026 | 230,000 | −6.5% |
| May 30, 2026 | 225,000 | −7.8% |
| May 23, 2026 | 212,000 | −10.2% |
| May 16, 2026 | 210,000 | −6.7% |
| May 9, 2026 | 212,000 | −6.2% |
| May 2, 2026 | 199,000 | −12.7% |