One area of the labor sector still not showing sustained weakness is unemployment claims. The number of first-time filers fell by 11,000, with 239,000 Initial Jobless Claims reported in the latest week. Initial Claims have remained relatively tame after topping 260,000 for the first three weeks of June. which suggests that employers are trying to retain their workers. This trend coincides with recent reporting that many businesses are struggling to find qualified workers for their positions.

Meanwhile, Continuing Claims rose by 32,000, with 1.716 million people still receiving benefits after filing their initial claim. This number has been trending lower since topping 1.861 million in early April, reflecting a mix of people finding new jobs and benefits expiring.

What’s the bottom line? With the Fed focused on employment data, this was an important real-time report because it includes the sample week that the Bureau of Labor Statistics will use in the modeling for their job growth estimates. Again, the Fed will be closely analyzing this headline job growth figure when August’s Jobs Report is released on September 1.