Editorial StaffIn the week that ended in February 25th, the number of first time claims for unemployment benefits was the lowest since 1973. The report from the Labor Department states that only 223,000 claims were made compared to the 242,000 claims from the week before. The four weeks moving average also showed a dip of 6,250 coming down to 234,250 from previous week’s 240,500.
This was quite surprising as economists were predicting that the claims were likely to touch the 245,000 mark. This was also the 104th straight week in which the initial claims were below 300,000. However, the continuing claims i.e. the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment benefits has reached 2.066 million showing an increase of 3000. The four weeks moving average has also gone up to 750 and reached 2,071,250.
The initial unemployment claims are the number of people who have claimed the benefits for the first time in the week in question. This is a good reflection of the number of layoff in a given week. The low claims suggest that the job market is going strong. However, it is not really an indicator of how many more jobs are being created but only shows that layoffs have come down considerably.
However there are indicators that the US job market is getting stronger. The rising inflation and a stronger job market could lead to increased interest rates this month even though the economic growth had not showed any marked increase in the first quarter.
(Reporting by Ananya Dutta; Editing by Mohith Agadi)
Mohith Agadi
