What is the United States Initial Jobless Claim

Photo by The New York Public Library on Unsplash

What is it?

• Initial jobless claims are a measure of the number of individuals who filed for unemployment insurance for the first time during the past week.
• They are an indicator of the health of the labor market
• A rise in initial jobless claims suggests that more people are losing their jobs and becoming unemployed.

Who Reports It?

Initial jobless claims are reported by the Department of Labor on a weekly basis and are closely watched by economists, policymakers, and the financial markets.

How it is Generated?

• Initial jobless claims are calculated by the Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA).
• The data indirectly comes from people who apply for unemployment insurance
• To qualify for unemployment insurance, an individual must have lost their job through no fault of their own, be able to work and actively seek employment and meet certain other eligibility requirements.
• To file an initial claim for unemployment insurance, individuals must contact their state unemployment insurance office and provide information about their employment history, income, and reason for separation from their job.
• This Initial jobless claims data is collected from the state unemployment insurance offices and reported on a weekly basis by the Department of Labor.

Code Example to receive Initial Jobless Claims

import requests

# Set the API endpoint and any necessary query parameters
endpoint = 'https://oui.doleta.gov/unemploy/claims.asp'
params = {
    'Week': 'latest',  # Retrieve the latest available data
    'State': 'MA'  # Retrieve data for Massachusetts
}

# Send the GET request to the API endpoint
response = requests.get(endpoint, params=params)

# Check the status code of the response to ensure the request was successful
if response.status_code == 200:
    # If the request was successful, the data will be contained in the response's text
    data = response.text
    # You can now process the data as needed
else:
    # If the request was not successful, print an error…