The number of new claims for unemployment benefits remained near a historical low last week, indicating few Americans are losing their jobs to layoffs.
The Department of Labor said on Thursday that 199,000 people filed for benefits for the first time, up from 198,000 in the prior week. That was better than the 201,000 consensus forecast.
Jobless claims have been below 200,000 for three consecutive weeks, the first such streak in 57 years. The last time jobless claims remained this low for this long was in 1969, during the extraordinary stretch of low unemployment from 1967 through 1969. The current numbers are all the more extraordinary because the workforce is more than twice as large and the last period’s labor numbers benefited from a military draft to support the Vietnam War.
The four-week moving average of claims fell to 198,750. Because claims can be volatile, many economists think this number is a better guide to the health of the labor market. The four-week average was last this low for two weeks in 2022. Prior to that, it had not been that low since 1969, when it hit an all-time low of 179,000.
The number of continued claims, those made after the initial week, rose by 24,000 to 1.8 million. This is also extremely low by historical standards. Claims were never this low from 1974 through 2017. During the last two years of the first Trump administration, continued claims were frequently this low and they reverted to this low level in the 2022-2024 period. They did not fall to 1.8 million or below last year but have spent 13 weeks this year at that level or below.
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