Easter Is Really Screwing Up The Labor Department's Month

For the second straight week, Labor Department economists are ascribing an uptick in the number of initial jobless claims to Easter-the 18,000-claim gain for the week ending April 3 was attributed to the holiday coming up, while the 24,000 increase for the week ending April 10 was blamed on both Easter and Cesar Chavez Day. The latter is a state holiday in California, which The Wall Street Journal referred to in its report as “worker-heavy.” (Ironically? Who even knows!) According to Bloomberg this is actually the second of three weeks that Easter will muck up the jobless-claim stats, thanks to its floating-holiday status making it tough to seasonally adjust the numbers. Although if numbers go down week to week, will we even hear the word “Easter” in the reports? Tune in next Thursday!