We have gone from a "low hire, low fire" economy to "AI chatbot hire, no fire." We joke, but really there is no other way to explain what is going on here: this morning the Dept of Labor reported that in the week ended April 25, jobless claims fell 26k to 189k (from an upward revised 215k), compared with median est. 212k. And... are you sitting down... this was the lowest weekly jobless print on record.

With the est. range at 205k-228k, today's print was not only far below the lowest estimate, but a 6 sigma miss to estimates.

While one can normally blame this on seasonal adjustments, the unadjusted number also plunged to just 179K in the last week.

Continuing claims also fell 23k to 1.785m in the week ending April 18. This was the lowest since early 2024.

Those wondering what was behind the unprecedented drop in claims, the answer appears to be a crash in New York State initial claims.