Fewer Americans Apply for Jobless Benefits Last Week

Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week reflecting a low number of layoffs across the economy.

Jobless claims fell by 18,000 to 215,000 for the week ending February 26, from 233,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

The four-week average for claims, which compensates for weekly volatility, fell by 6,000 to 230,500.

In total, 1,476,000 Americans were collecting jobless aid the week that ended Feb. 12, a small uptick of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised number, which was its lowest level since March 14, 1970.

First-time applications for jobless aid generally track the pace of layoffs, which are back down to fairly healthy pre-pandemic levels.

The Labor Department releases its February jobs report on Friday. Analysts surveyed by the financial data firm FactSet forecast that the U.S. economy added 400,000 jobs last month.

In January, the U.S. economy added a whopping 467,000 jobs and revised December and November gains upward by a combined 709,000. The unemployment rate stands at 4%, a historically low figure.

The U.S. economy has rebounded strongly from 2020’s coronavirus-caused recession. Massive government spending and the vaccine rollout jumpstarted the economy as employers added a record 6.4 million jobs last year. The U.S. economy expanded 5.7% in 2021, growing last year at the fastest annual pace since a 7.2% surge in 1984, which also followed a recession.

Inflation is also at a 40-year high — 7.5% year-over-year — leading the Federal Reserve to ease its monetary support for the economy. The Fed has said it will begin a series of interest-rate hikes this month in an effort to tamp down surging prices.

Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week reflecting a low number of layoffs across the economy.

Jobless claims fell by 18,000 to 215,000 for the week ending February 26, from 233,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
The four-week average for claims, which compensates for weekly volatility, fell by 6,000 to 230,500.

In total, 1,476,000 Americans were collecting jobless aid the week that ended Feb. 12, a small uptick of 2,000 from the previous week’s revised number, which was its lowest level since March 14, 1970.

First-time applications for jobless aid generally track the pace of layoffs, which are back down to fairly healthy pre-pandemic levels.
The Labor Department releases its February jobs report on Friday. Analysts surveyed by the financial data firm FactSet forecast that the U.S. economy added 400,000 jobs last month.

In January, the U.S. economy added a whopping 467,000 jobs and revised December and November gains upward by a combined 709,000. The unemployment rate stands at 4%, a historically low figure.

The U.S. economy has rebounded strongly from 2020’s coronavirus-caused recession. Massive government spending and the vaccine rollout jumpstarted the economy as employers added a record 6.4 million jobs last year. The U.S. economy expanded 5.7% in 2021, growing last year at the fastest annual pace since a 7.2% surge in 1984, which also followed a recession.

Inflation is also at a 40-year high — 7.5% year-over-year — leading the Federal Reserve to ease its monetary support for the economy. The Fed has said it will begin a series of interest-rate hikes this month in an effort to tamp down surging prices.

US Weekly Jobless Claims Fall; Fourth-quarter GDP Growth Revised Slightly Up

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell slightly more than expected last week, indicating that the labor market recovery was gaining traction.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits decreased 17,000 to a seasonally adjusted 232,000 for the week ended Feb. 19, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 235,000 applications for the latest week.

Claims had risen in the week ending Feb. 12, which economists blamed on week-to-week volatility in the data and the delayed impact of winter storms early in the month.

With a near record 10.9 million job openings at the end of December, layoffs are minimal and economists expect claims to fall back below 200,000 in the coming weeks. They were last below this level in early December.

Many Federal Reserve officials view labor market conditions as being already at or very close to maximum employment.

Claims have dropped from a record high of 6.149 million in early April 2020. The tightening labor market conditions are boosting wage growth, which is contributing to high inflation.

Rising wages and better job security should, however, help to underpin consumer spending and sustain the economic expansion even as the Fed starts raising interest rates to tamp down inflation, and government money to households and businesses dries up. The U.S. central bank is expected to start raising rates in March, with economists anticipating as many as seven hikes this year.

A separate report from the Commerce Department on Thursday confirmed that economic growth accelerated in the fourth quarter as the drag from a resurgence in COVID-19 infections over the summer, driven by the Delta variant, eased.

Gross domestic product increased at a 7.0% annualized rate last quarter, the government said in its second GDP estimate. That was slightly up from the previously reported 6.9% pace. The economy grew at a 2.3% growth pace in the third quarter.

The economic momentum, however, appeared to have faded by December amid a strong headwind from coronavirus infections fueled by the Omicron variant. But activity has since picked up as the winter wave of infections subsided.

Retail sales surged in January and business activity rebounded in February, data showed this month. That has created an upside risk to GDP growth estimates for

the first-quarter, which are mostly below a 2.0 rate.
The United States is reporting an average of 80,131 new COVID-19 infections a day, sharply down from the more than 700,000 in mid-January, according to a Reuters analysis of official data.

US Jobless Benefit Claims Edge Down

WASHINGTON — 

New claims for jobless benefits fell in the United States last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday, as many employers hung on to the workers they have and searched for more.

The agency said 238,000 unemployed workers filed for compensation, down 23,000 from the revised figure of the week before. The new total was in line with the claim figures from recent weeks as the U.S. economy, the world’s largest, continues to recover from the havoc inflicted on it by the advance of the coronavirus pandemic that swept into the country nearly two years ago.

Analysts now are awaiting the government’s release Friday of January’s employment picture in the U.S., the number of new jobs created last month and the unemployment rate, which was 3.9% in December.

The U.S. economy added a modest 199,000 new jobs in December, and analysts say January’s figure may not be much different, perhaps even smaller, as the number of new omicron variant coronavirus cases surged early in January and then waned, after the employment data was collected at mid-month.

Many employers are looking for more workers, despite about 6.9 million workers remaining unemployed in the U.S.

At the end of November, there were 10.4 million job openings in the U.S., but the skills of available workers often do not match what employers want, or the job openings are not where the unemployed live. In addition, many of the available jobs are low-wage service positions that the jobless are shunning.

But overall, the U.S. economy is surging, advancing by 5.7% in 2021, the fastest full-year gain since 1984, the Commerce Department reported last week.

The sharp growth in the world’s biggest economy showed its resiliency, even as the U.S. struggled to cope last year with two new coronavirus variants that hobbled some industries, caused supply chain issues for consumer goods that at times left store shelves empty, and led to a 7% year-over-year surge in consumer prices that was the highest in four decades.

But for the year, a record 6.4 million jobs were created, and most of the jobs lost at the outset of the pandemic in early 2020 have been recovered.

Some economic analysts say that even if the January jobs number is weak, it may be a temporary setback because the number of new coronavirus cases has been dropping sharply in the U.S. to under 400,000 new cases a day, about half of what it was just weeks ago.

The country’s robust economy pushed Federal Reserve policymakers last week to announce they could boost their benchmark interest rate as early as March after keeping it near 0% since the coronavirus first swept into the United States in March 2020.

The Fed could increase the rate several more times this year, which could have a broad effect on borrowing costs for consumers and businesses.