Weekly US jobless claims little changed
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Thursday 02 Mar 2023
(Sharecast News) - Unemployment claims in the US were little changed during the latest week.
According to the US Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms initial jobless claims drifted lower by 2,000 over the week ending on 25 February to reach 190,000.
Economists had penciled in a small rise to 195,000.
The estimate for the prior week was unchanged at 192,000.
A four-week moving average of initial claims that aims to smooth out the fluctuations in the data from one week to the next increased by 1,750 to 193,000.
Secondary claims, which are those not being filed for the first time and that reference the week that finished on 18 February dipped by 5,000 to 1.665m.
Commenting on the latest figures, Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, pointed out that continuing claims, after trending higher through the fall had now stabilised around their pre-pandemic levels.
In the week ending on 14 December, continuing claims ran at a 1.72m pace with non-farm payrolls rising by 145,000 during the month and by 225,000 in January 2020.
Initial unemployment claims meanwhile showed that the labour market was "too tight to help the Fed in its effort to lower inflation, leaving the central bank on track to raise rates at the following three meetings," the economist added.
Looking forwards, she believed that the rise in first-time claims might be muted in comparison to previous recession as companies would be reluctant to let go of staff.
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