High-Frequency Update: 10-12-25

Arizona initial claims for unemployment insurance ticked up to 2,783 for the week ended October 4, up from 2,463 the prior week. That was down 25.8% over the year and down 26.3% from 2019.

U.S. weekly initial claims for unemployment insurance data will not be updated during the federal government shutdown.

The U.S. hotel occupancy rate dropped to 63.7% for the week ended October 4, down from 65.6% the prior week. That was down 2.9% over the year and down 6.5% from 2019.

U.S. movie box office sales were steady for the week ended October 9, at $102.4 million. That was down 9.2% over the year and down 52.7% from 2019. New movie releases were down 41.5% from 2019.

U.S. TSA traveler throughput ticked down to 17.0 million for the week ended October 4, down from 17.1 million the prior week. That was up 1.0% over the year and up 7.7% from 2019.

Weekly data on Arizona new business applications continue to be published by the Census Bureau, but only on a monthly basis. Data for September has not been updated due to the federal government shutdown.

Data on seated diners at restaurants using the OpenTable app is no longer being updated to compare the current week to 2019 results.

As of October 15, 2022, Google stopped updating mobility data.

Key News Articles and Research (subscription may be required)

Curated by Valorie Rice, Senior Business Information Specialist

Arizona and general topics: Project Blue developer in talks with Marana to build second southern Arizona data center (AR 9/26)
Automation / AI: New data show no AI jobs apocalypse – for now (Brookings 10/1)
Demographic / socioeconomic / Census: Growing share of Americans say fewer people having kids would negatively impact the U.S. (Pew 9/30)
Economy: Federal shutdowns usually don’t do much economic damage. There are reasons to worry about this one (AP 10/2)
Education / early childhood development: A state-level perspective on school spending and educational outcomes (Brookings 9/30)
Energy / environment / infrastructure: New report calls for policy changes with Colorado River ‘on the cusp of failure’ (AZPM 10/1)
Housing / real estate: Home sales drop in Las Vegas, rise in Houston as market heads for worst year since 1995 (Stateline 10/1)
Mexico/trade: The US has formally started joint review of USMCA (Brookings 9/26)
Prices/inflation: How well are inflation expectations anchored? Two datasets compared (FRBSL 9/25)
Public finance: What the federal shutdown means for states and localities (Governing 10/1)
Wages/income/wealth: Median full-time salary by state – graphic (Visual Capitalist 9/24)
Workforce/employment/labor market: The surprising group hurt by Trump’s H-1B visa fee (WP 9/26)