The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose for the first time in five weeks even though the economy and job market have been recovering briskly from the coronavirus pandemic.
Jobless claims edged up by 4,000 to 353,000 from a pandemic low 349,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department reported this morning. However, the four-week average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, fell by 11,500 to 366,500—lowest since mid-March 2020 when the coronavirus was beginning to slam the U.S.
The weekly count has fallen more or less steadily since topping 900,000 in early January as the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines has helped the economy—encouraging businesses to reopen or expand hours and luring consumers out of their homes to restaurants, bars and shops.
“We expect jobless claims to remain on a downward path as the labor market continues to recover, but progress will be more fitful as claims get closer to pre-pandemic levels,” economists Nancy Vanden Houten and Gregory Daco of Oxford Economics say in a research note.
A resurgence of cases linked to the highly contagious delta variant has also clouded the economic outlook. And claims are still high by historical standards: Before the pandemic tore through the economy in March 2020, the weekly pace amounted to around 220,000 a week. See the full report.
