Continuing claims have been on a modest upward path since last summer, but we just saw a big jump in last week’s data. The levels are still not scary high, but they definitely are consistent with a weakening labor market.

To be clear on what we are looking at, the story is one where workers are not seeing any big rise in layoffs — new claims are not very different from where they were last summer — but once people lose a job, they have a harder time finding a new one. This would be consistent with employers being more reluctant to hire, which is what we see in the........

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