The number of Americans receiving state-level jobless benefits, or insured unemployment, fell to its lowest level in more than a year, the Labor Department said Thursday, adding to a slew of recently promising developments for the long-struggling labor market.
Last week, economists were expecting about 260,000 new unemployment claims.
The Associated Press.
In the week ending November 27 there were 222,000 initial jobless claims filed, which was 28,000 more than the previous week and marked the lowest level of new claims since 1969.
The week's figures came in much better than expected, with 240,000 new claims reported last week.
The number of continuing claims fell to a new low below 2 million, a sharp decrease of 107,000 from the previous week, and is close to pre-covid levels.
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Mark Hamrick, a senior economist analyst, said in an email that the economy has continued to heal from the recession caused by Covid-19. Supply chain disruptions, worker shortages and inflation have been the other surprising sides of a world that we couldn't have imagined a couple of years ago.
The key background.
The labor market has made a remarkable recovery after it was hit by a wave of Covid-19 infections. The job market posted its worst month of the year in September, but a decline in Covid-19 cases helped lead to a streak of weekly improvements for new jobless claims. President Joe Biden said in a statement last month that the unemployment rate has fallen so far this year at the fastest rate since the 1950s. The jobs recovery has happened faster than after the Great Recession. America is getting back to work.
What to watch for.
The employment report for November will be released on Friday. The economy is expected to add back about 573,000 jobs last month, which would be the best performance since July.
While we are on guard for any possible impacts from the Omicron variant news, it is too early to see the data. There are many questions yet to be answered about future economic impacts. The United States became the latest country to report a case of the variant, which was first discovered in South Africa one week ago and has since spread to at least 24 nations.
There are close to a million job openings in the U.S.
The US economy added 531,000 jobs last month.
