US unemployment claims fall to new pandemic low

A hiring signal is displayed at a furnishings retailer window on Friday, Sept. 17, 2021, in Downers Grove, In poor health. Unemployment claims dropped 6,000 to 290,000 final week, the third straight drop, the Labor Division mentioned Thursday, Oct. 21, 2021,. That’s the fewest folks to use for advantages since March 14, 2020, when the pandemic intensified.

AP Photograph/Nam Y. Huh

WASHINGTON (AP) — The variety of Individuals making use of for unemployment advantages fell final week to a brand new low level for the reason that pandemic erupted, proof that layoffs are declining as corporations maintain onto employees.

Unemployment claims dropped 6,000 to 290,000 final week, the third straight drop, the Labor Division mentioned Thursday. That’s the fewest folks to use for advantages since March 14, 2020, when the pandemic intensified. Functions for jobless support, which typically monitor the tempo of layoffs, have fallen steadily from about 900,000 in January.

Unemployment claims are more and more returning to regular, however many different facets of the job market have not but carried out so. Hiring has slowed up to now two months, whilst corporations and different employers have posted a near-record variety of open jobs. Officers comparable to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had hoped extra folks would discover work in September as colleges reopened, easing youngster care constraints, and enhanced unemployment support ended nationwide.

But to this point, that hasn’t occurred. As a substitute, some observers are beginning to contemplate whether or not a few of those that had jobs earlier than the pandemic, and misplaced them, could have completely stopped on the lookout for work.

On Tuesday, Christopher Waller, a member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors, mentioned that two million of the 22 million jobs misplaced to the pandemic could not return anytime quickly as a result of retirements have accelerated so shortly since COVID-19 hit.

The Labor Division’s report Thursday additionally confirmed that the variety of folks receiving jobless support continues to fall steadily. Within the week of Oct. 2, the most recent information out there, 3.3 million folks obtained unemployment advantages, down from 3.6 million within the earlier week.

A 12 months in the past, almost 24 million folks have been getting unemployment support.

About 7 million folks misplaced jobless advantages in September after two emergency packages, arrange in March 2020, expired. One of many packages supplied support to gig employees and the self-employed, who historically usually are not eligible to obtain unemployment insurance coverage, and the second lined employees who’ve been unemployed for longer than six months. And an further $300 per week in federal unemployment advantages expired nationwide Sept. 6.