High-Frequency Update: 9-21-25

Sept. 21, 2025

By George W. Hammond, EBRC director and Eller research professor

Arizona initial claims for unemployment insurance rose last week

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Arizona initial claims for unemployment insurance rose to 3,165 for the week ended September 13, up from 2,980 the prior week. That was down 14.0% over the year and down 13.1% from 2019.

U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance fell to 194,478 for the week ended September 13, down from 204,862 the prior week. That was up 4.1% over the year and up 12.3% from 2019.

The U.S. hotel occupancy rate rose to 65.4% for the week ended September 13, up from 57.7% the prior week. That was down 1.8% over the year and down 6.0% from 2019.

U.S. movie box office sales rose to $191.0 million for the week ended September 18, up from $159.1 million the prior week. That was up 53.6% over the year and up 27.7% from 2019. New movie releases were down 40.6% from 2019.

U.S. TSA traveler throughput rose to 16.4 million for the week ended September 13, up from 16.1 million the prior week. That was up 0.8% over the year and up 6.5% from 2019.

Weekly data on Arizona new business applications continue to be published by the Census Bureau, but only on a monthly basis. In August, weekly new business applications ranged from 650 to 850. Overall, applications were up significantly over the year in July.

Data on seated diners at restaurants using the OpenTable app is no longer being updated to compare the current week to 2019 results.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: Developers now plan to air-cool Project Blue at original Pima County site (ADS 9/18)
Automation / AI: How AI and other technology impacted businesses and workers (Census 9/17)
Federal statistics: BLS resumes hiring of price checkers (WSJ 9/15)
Economy: Unemployment, inflation and GDP growth will be worse this year than projected, budget office says (AP 9/12)
Education / early childhood development: Federal funding freeze throws schools into uncertainty (Governing 9/18)
Energy / environment / infrastructure: EV charging network plans move forward after federal funding freeze (AR 9/16)
Housing / real estate: Affordable housing out of reach for half of all U.S. workers (Governing 9/15)
Mexico/trade: Tariffs, manufacturing employment, and supply chains (NBER)
Prices/inflation: Is the Producer Price Index signaling a coming rise in consumer inflation? (Upjohn 9/4)
Public finance: Why the Fed rate cut won’t ease the government’s debt problem (WSJ 9/19)
Wages/income/wealth: Trump administration releases list of 68 jobs covered by ‘no tax on tips. Do you qualify? (ADS 9/7)
Workforce/employment/labor market: The newest face of long-term unemployment? The college educated (NYT 9/15)

Weekly Indicators

Use your cursor as a tooltip and click on charts to view values. Click on the names of indicators listed at the bottom any chart to switch them on/off to view fewer at one time and make comparisons. Icons allow you to download and share.

Note: The official initial claims for unemployment insurance numbers for the U.S. are released every Thursday morning covering the week ending on the previous Saturday.

The U.S. Census Bureau continues to produce weekly estimates; however, the weekly estimate files are published as part of the Monthly Business Formation Statistics (BFS) Release.One key dataset with these estimates is High-Propensity Business Applications, a subset of total weekly business applications in Arizona that measures the number of applications with a high-propensity of turning into a business with a payroll, based on various factors. These data reflect weekly applications for Employer Identification Numbers (EINs) in Arizona which are likely to result in employment and wages. These include applications: (a) from a corporate entity, (b) that indicate they are hiring employees, purchasing a business or changing organizational type, (c) that provide a first wages-paid date (planned wages); or (d) that have a NAICS industry code in manufacturing (31-33), retail stores (44), health care (62), or restaurants/food service (72). Applications for EINs occur before the jobs and wages are added, so this is a leading indicator. Read more about the Business Application dataset from the U.S. Census Bureau.