The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits remained up last week, a sign of the impact of the Fed’s rate hikes over the past year on a resilient labor market.
The US Labor Department reported 262,000 new jobless claims in the week ended June 10, it said on Thursday. This is more than analysts expected, and the number of claims in the last two weeks is the highest since October 2021, reports ABC.
US employers have been adding jobs at a rapid pace since more than 20 million jobs were lost during the pandemic in the spring of 2020. Despite the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to cool the economy and curb inflation, Americans have experienced unusual job security.
Fed officials decided on Wednesday not to raise their benchmark interest rate, although they indicated they would do so later this year. Rising interest rates have helped curb inflation, and the labor market has remained unusually strong for over a year.
US employers added 339,000 jobs last month, well above expectations, providing an encouraging picture of the labor market, even as the unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent. Economists expect that the number of vacant jobs will decrease.
The Data Does Not Point To A Recession
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week by the most in five months. Data from the US Labor Department indicated that the fundamental pattern continued to align with a labor market characterized by tight conditions.
For the week ending March 4, there was an increase of 21,000 in initial claims for state unemployment benefits, reaching a seasonally adjusted total of 211,000. According to Reuters, this marked the largest surge since October, causing claims to reach their highest point in the past two months.
However, claims remained well below the 300,000 level associated with the recession. Economists had forecast 195,000 new claims last week, while the four-week average of a measure of labor market trends rose to 197,000 last week.
