US unemployment claims rise because Omicron has a weight in the labor market Unemployment News

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose to its highest level last week since mid-October.

The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the United States rose last week, indicating that the rapidly expanding Omicron COVID-19 variant is having a negative impact on the revival of the labor market.

About 286,000 former unemployment claims were filed last week, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday. It was 55,000 more than last week’s review and had the highest level of claims since mid-October.

Initial unemployment claims are a proxy for layoffs, and although the weekly measurement is usually variable, analysts see a rise. Omicron infections at stake in the latest figures.

“The increase in claims reflects the increase in layoffs as a result of the rise in COVID cases and the additional momentum of major seasonal adjustment factors,” said Nancy Vanden Houten, chief economist at the US Economics at Oxford Economics. “From now on, seasonal factors will be less volatile, and we expect claims to return to 200,000 after the Omicron wave passes.”

The four-week moving average of initial claims, which smoothed out the volatility of weekly numbers, was 231,000, 20,000 more than the previous week’s average review.

And the number of Americans currently receiving unemployment benefits – a measure known as “ongoing claims” – reached 1.64 million in the week ended Jan. 8, 84,000 more than the level reviewed last week.

Omicron infections have caused a wave of staff to call patients and cause flights to be canceled and delayed. Although many economists see a variant that is hurting the economy in this rise in infection, the recovery is expected to continue on the right track.

Although unemployment claims rose last week, the biggest problem for employers right now is to present vacancies and retain existing employees.

Record number of Americans quit their job in November, while job vacancies remained at almost record levels.