New weekly unemployment demands rose from a pandemic-era low last week, pointing to sustained improvements in the labor market recovery.
The Department of Labor released its weekly report on unemployment claims Thursday at 8:30 a.m. ET. The following are the main metrics for the print version, compared to the consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
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Initial unemployment applications, week ending September 11: 332,000 against 322,000 planned and 312,000 revised during the previous week
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Continued claims, the week ended September 4: 2,665 million against 2,740 million expected and 2,783 million during the previous week
Initial unemployment claims had reached their lowest level since March 2020 in early September, as the pace of new strikes approached pre-pandemic standards. New unemployment claims had reached a rate of about 220,000 a month throughout 2019.
The four-week moving average of new weekly claims has also risen to its lowest level in 18 months, reaching about 335,750 last week. This metric helps soften some of the volatility of weekly figures and has followed a clear downward path throughout the year. The continued fall in new claims has also underscored the fact that labor shortages and hiring difficulties have been the biggest drag on the labor market in recent months, rather than layoffs and separations.
The number of people who are still unemployed and applying for benefits over a longer period of time has also dropped along with the drop in new applicants. As of August 28, the total number of applicants to state and federal programs was just over 12.1 million, an increase of nearly 180,000 from the previous week. However, the general trend of the total number of claimants has decreased and, during the same week last year, the total number of claimants exceeded 30.3 million.
And these recent sums of total plaintiffs underestimate the real-time drop in total plaintiffs, given the data being released several weeks late. As of Sept. 6, pandemic-era federal unemployment benefits previously authorized by Congress had expired in all states.
This included programs such as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which provided benefits for workers and contractors who were not eligible for regular state programs, and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which offered broad benefits to those who were exhausted. regular state insurance. A total of 8.9 million Americans claimed benefits between these two programs in mid-August, which accounted for the clear majority of all applicants at the time.
While some economists and policymakers have suggested that the end of increased federal unemployment benefits could catalyze a broader return to work, others have been more skeptical, given current concerns about the coronavirus. .
“Unfortunately Delta seems to have left workers uncomfortable in returning to the workforce,” Bank of America economist Michelle Meyer wrote Wednesday. “All eyes are on the broadest expiration of the UI [unemployment insurance] the benefits will lead to increased labor participation in the coming weeks. “
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Emily McCormick is a Yahoo Finance reporter. Follow her on Twitter: @emily_mcck
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