Weekly unemployment claims were slightly lower than expected last week, although employment gains in the United States remain sluggish.
Unemployment insurance claims for the first time amounted to 779,000 for the week ended Jan. 30, the Labor Department said Thursday. This was lower than the estimate of 830,000 economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
This was the lowest week of claims since Nov. 28, as the U.S. economy continues its slow recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The total represented a drop of 33,000 from the revised 812,000 count down from the previous week.
Ongoing claims also continued to fall, down 193,000 from the previous week to 4.6 million. The peak of the pandemic era for continuing claims was 24.9 million in early May 2020. Data from continuing claims go one week behind first-time claims.
In addition, the total number of beneficiaries fell sharply, falling by almost half a million to 17.8 million. This reflects a continuing decline in people earning benefits in pandemic-related programs, which were slightly offset by those of prolonged benefits.
With unemployment still high, the Biden administration is working on a plan to push for additional stimulus controls on Americans, as well as improved compensation.
Last week’s drop in claims was largely due to a drop of more than 55,000 in Illinois, although much of that drop was offset by a gain of more than 46,000 in California, according to unadjusted figures .
The report is ahead of the publication on Friday of the January non-farm payroll count by the Department of Labor. The Dow Jones estimate for this total is 50,000, with a constant unemployment rate of 6.7%.
While job recovery has a long way to go, there have been encouraging signs lately. ISM reports on manufacturing and services indicated that companies are hiring workers, while the number of ADP private payrolls released on Wednesday showed better-than-expected growth of 174,000.
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