Initial unemployment claims

Two of the leading (bleeding) edges of an economy are new hire and new fires. The latter shows up in initial unemployment claims, a number that is released weekly by the labor department. Here’s a chart of seasonally adjusted claims over the last 40 years.

The latest reading was 375,000, up from the previous week’s 306,000. We’re still well below previous peaks were:
10/82: 695,000
3/91: 509,000
9/01:517,000

(Here’s the DOL chart generator: