Jobless Claims Fall Below 500,000

We had some good economic news this morning. The initial jobless claims report was “only” 498,000. This is a new pandemic low. Of course, that’s normally a very high number, but in the age of Covid, it’s pretty good.

In fact, 498,000 is closer to previous peaks in other cycles. A little over a year ago, jobless claims peaked at six million. Jobless claims are now lower than they were during any time over the 12 months immediately following the financial crisis (November 2008 to November 2009).

While the jobs market still has a long way to go before it fully heals from the pandemic damage, improvement has accelerated in recent weeks as restrictions on activity continue to be lifted.

Though the pace has eased lately, the U.S. is still vaccinating more than 2 million people a day and soon will have half the population with at least one shot.

The claims decline comes a day before the Labor Department releases its nonfarm payroll count for April. Economists expect that the economy added another 1 million jobs during the month, with hiring likely to be the quickest in the hospitality sector, which sustained the worst of the pandemic-related damage.

However, continuing claims actually ticked higher last week, rising 37,000 to just below 3.7 million. The four-week moving average for claims edged down to 3.68 million, the lowest since March 28, 2020, just as mass layoffs were beginning to combat the spreading coronavirus.

Posted by on May 6th, 2021 at 10:17 am


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