Weekly US unemployment claims rise slightly
By Alexander Bueso
Date: Thursday 20 Apr 2023
(Sharecast News) - The US labour market softened a tad more during the previous week.
According to the US Department of Labor, in seasonally adjusted terms, initial unemployment claims edged up by 5,000 over the week ending on 15 April to reach 245,000.
Economists had forecast 242,000.
The four-week moving average meanwhile dipped by 500 to 239,750.
Secondary jobless claims for the week ending on 8 April, which are those not being filed for the first time, increased by 61,000 to 1.865m.
"Initial claims stayed on their upward trajectory, indicating labor market tightness is easing modestly, but layoffs are far from broad-based and have not caused a spike in the unemployed," Oren Klachkin and Ryan Sweet at Oxford Economics said in a research note sent to clients.
"We expect a swifter rise in claims will wait until the second half of the year when the economy enters a recession, though the labor market downturn will be less severe by historic standards."
"The trend in claims has risen by about 40K from its January lows; in the past an increase in claims of that size would be consistent with payroll growth slowing by about 70K compared to its prior trend, other things equal," chipped in Kieran Clancy, senior US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
"But other things aren't equal; the pace of hiring is slowing too. We expect to see payroll growth slowing to zero by June."
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