The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose last week but remained at historically low levels, suggesting that the job market remains strong.
U.S. jobless claims rose by 7,000 last week to 207,000. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week gyrations, rose by nearly 4,800 to just below 205,000. Despite the increases, the numbers show that weekly claims are below the 220,000 typical before the pandemic struck the U.S. economy in March 2020.
The highly transmissible omicron variant so far does not appear to have triggered significant layoffs.
Altogether, nearly 1.8 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment aid the week that ended Dec. 25.
“Assuming any layoffs related to Omicron are limited amid tight labor market conditions, we expect initial claims to continue to hover around the (200,000) mark,” says Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics. Read more.
