On Thursday, despite a slight increase, the number of persons applying for unemployment benefits continued to trend down, indicating that the U.S. labour market remains tight. “According to the Labor Department, 213,000 first claims were filed last week, up slightly from 208,000 the week before but under the analysts’ consensus expectation of 218,000”.
- 23-Sep-2022 : Initial Jobless Claims
- Actual : 213K
- Forecast : 218k
- Previous : 213K
- 23-Sep-2022 : Jobless claims 4- week average
- Actual : 216.75K
- Forecast :
- Previous : 224.0k
The numbers from the prior week were decreased by 5,000. As a result, the initial jobless claims four-week average, which reduces some of the weekly volatility in the series, kept falling and reached a three-month low of 216,750. Additionally, the number of ongoing unemployment claims decreased by almost 22,000, to 1.379 million. The evidence suggests that, despite a downturn that is leading to an increase in layoffs, it is still very easy for people to obtain new jobs nearly immediately after losing their current ones.