Surprise! Jobless claims return to 18-month range…

And there it is...'unexpected' to some, reality to the rest of us...

HotAir: It’s funny what happens to a data series when consistency returns to its collection. Last week’s weekly jobless claims numbers dropped dramatically to nearly a four-year low, but later it was discovered that one large state didn’t report all of its claims properly. This week, the level returns to the same range we’ve seen since the spring of 2011.

The Associated Press confirms that California bolloxed up the works, and that the data series is back on track.

In other words, nothing really changed. Initial jobless claims are being created at about the same relative pace as it has for at least the last 18 months; although this is the highest number we’ve seen in the last four months, it’s not statistically significant from the series to be exceptional. This series does not provide a direct correlation to job creation, but over time this data series does have some indirect correlation to the health of job creation in the economy. What this tells us over the long term is that the labor market is still stagnant.

Thanks to the vigilance of those in the know who understood from the very beginning that these were bogus numbers, followed by the discovery that California's jobless claims weren't included, this is probably the most expected rise in the jobs numbers.