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The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell last week despite heightened uncertainty about how President Donald Trump’s tariffs will impact the U.S. and global economies.
Jobless claim applications fell by 13,000, to 228,000, for the week ending May 3, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s in line with the 229,000 new applications analysts forecast.
Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have mostly bounced around a healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 decimated the economy and wiped out millions of jobs.
Even though Trump has paused or pulled back on many of his tariff threats, concerns remain about a global economic slowdown that could upend the U.S. labor market, which has been a pillar of the American economy for years.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark lending rate at 4.3% for the third straight meeting, after cutting it three times in a row at the end of last year.
