Weekly Unemployment Claims Spike; Shutdown Gets Some Blame
First-time claims for unemployment insurance were up sharply to
374,000 from 308,000 the week before, the Employment and
Training Administration reported Thursday.  The increase for the
week ending Oct. 5 is a departure from a trend in recent weeks
that was lower than at any time since the spring of 2007, before
the onset of the recession.  Bloomberg reports that the surge
was partly the result of the government shutdown, as well as a
backlog of claims from California resulting from a switch in the
state's computer systems.  Bloomberg says:   " 'The longer the
government shutdown continues, the bigger the effect on the
private sector will be,' Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody's
Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the
report. He added that it will be hard to tell whether the
layoffs are coming from contractors directly affected by the
closings or by other companies with shaken confidence."  A
government spokesman attributed