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Unemployment claims fell to between 8,000 and 198,000, the Department of Labor reported on Thursday.
The number of Americans claiming unemployment benefits fell below 200,000, a testament to the fact that the labor market remains strong after last year’s coronavirus recession.
Unemployment claims fell to between 8,000 and 198,000, the Department of Labor reported on Thursday. The four-week average, which smooths out weekly volatility, was over 199,000, the lowest level since October 1969.
The numbers suggest that the rapidly spreading Omicron variant has yet to trigger a wave of releases.
A total of 1.7 million Americans were receiving traditional unemployment benefits in the week ending Dec. 18. That was in March 2020, when the pandemic began to hit the U.S. economy, and 140,000 less than the previous week.
The number of weekly claims, proxies for releases, has been steadily declining throughout the year. Employers are not leaving their employees at a time when it is so difficult to find replacements. The United States had an almost record 11 million job vacancies in October, and 4.2 million Americans quit their jobs — only a record 4.4 million in September — because there were so many opportunities.
The labor market has retreated from the brief but intense recession of last year’s coronavirus. When COVID hit, governments ordered blockades, consumers stayed home and many businesses closed or reduced their hours. Employers cut more than 22 million jobs in March and April 2020, and the unemployment rate rose to 14.8 percent.
But large government spending – and eventually the spread of vaccines – brought the economy back. Employers have added 18.5 million jobs since April 2020, and there are still 3.9 million jobs in the U.S. before the pandemic. The December employment report, which will be released next week, shows that the economy has created another 374,000 jobs this month.
The unemployment rate fell to 4.2 per cent, close to what economists consider full employment.
“The overall picture painted by these data indicates that there is a rapid growth rate of employment,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief economist at U.S. consulting firm Maria Fiorini Ramirez Inc. Hiring would be even stronger “if companies were able to hire as many employees as they wanted.”
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