New unemployment claims were filed by the fewest Americans in over three years last week, far fewer than economists had been expecting.
There were 191,000 initial claims for unemployment benefits in the week that included Thanksgiving, the Department of Labor said Thursday. Economists had forecast 225,000. The prior week’s claims were revised up by 2,000 to 218,000.
Holidays can make claims numbers volatile. Some people who lost their jobs last week may have delayed filing for benefits until after the holiday. Still, the lower-than-expected figure highlights how few people are losing their jobs as we near the end of the year.
The four-week moving average of claims, which smoothes out week-to-week volatility, fell to 214,750.
Although there have been many layoff announcements hitting the headlines, these are not representative of the labor market. Employers are hanging on to their existing employees even while they have slowed the hiring of new employees.
Continuing claims, which are reported with a week delay, declined to 1.94 million in the week ended Nov. 22. This number has been somewhat elevated since mid-year, suggesting that employees who do lose their jobs are having a tougher time finding new work.
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