New applications for US unemployment benefits have fallen below 300,000 for the first time since the pandemic began, a milestone in the labor market’s recovery from the virus-ravaged devastation last year.
Weekly applications for jobless aid became one of the most visible signs of the economic devastation of Covid-19, as they soared into the millions in March 2020.
They have declined throughout the year as vaccines have allowed employers to rebuild their workforce, and the Labor Department reported Thursday they fell to 293,000 in the week ending October 9, the lowest since the crisis began. Level.
Daniel Zhao of job search site Glassdoor said on Twitter: “Early claims are now within striking distance of their pre-pandemic levels, which could be reached by the end of this year as the delta wave recedes and recruitment improves. “
Even as claims inches closer to 256,000, their level on March 14, 2020, the last week of normalcy, US workers face headwinds.
These include supply chain snarls, which have pushed prices up, as well as the delta version of the virus, which has fueled a spike in cases in recent weeks that now appears to be declining.
Nonetheless, Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics said the data predicts better days are ahead.
Claims will not fall at the pace seen over the past few weeks, but the trend is clearly downward and layoffs will decline further as the economy re-emerges from the delta wave, he wrote in an analysis.
Delta’s toll
Claims remained high until 2020 before a decisive decline in vaccines this year, although a wave of infections with the rapidly spreading delta variant has arrested that progress in recent weeks.
Last week’s claims were 36,000 fewer than the week before, while the report said another 21,624 claims, not seasonally adjusted, were filed under the pandemic unemployment assistance program, which is a general aid to freelance workers. Wasn’t made to assist, but was finished weeks ago.
All told, more than 3.6 million people were receiving jobless benefits under all programs as of the week ending September 25, for which the latest data was available.
The report shows that insured unemployment had hit another record low, the share of workers actually receiving benefits.
As of October 2, 2,593,000 people were receiving regular benefits, a drop of 134,000 from the previous week and the lowest level since the pandemic began.
The report said the insured unemployment rate that week was 1.9 percent, slightly lower than the week before.
Nancy Vanden Houten of Oxford Economics said: “The claim figures are in line with the improvement in employment conditions. We expect further progress in the coming months as health conditions improve following a summer increase in cases from the delta version.” Used to be.”
In a sign of the economy’s ongoing challenges, separate Labor Department data released Thursday showed wholesale prices rising 8.6 percent in the 12 months ended September, their biggest increase in a decade and the continued strength of the inflation wave. signal of.
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