New initial jobless claims are expected to hold at pre-pandemic levels, further pointing to the tightness of the present labor market as many employers seek to retain workers.
Jobless claims are expected to decrease once more after a brief tick higher last week. In mid-November, new weekly claims had plunged to their lowest level since 1969, coming in at 194,000.
After more than a year-and-a-half of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., jobless claims have begun to hover at their pre-virus levels. New claims were averaging about 220,000 per week throughout 2019. At the height of the pandemic and stay-in-place restrictions, new claims had come in at more than 6.1 million during the week ended April 3, 2020.
Continuing claims, which track the number of those still receiving unemployment benefits via regular state programs, have also come down sharply from pandemic-era highs, and reached a March 2020 low of just below 2 million last week.
“Beyond weekly moves, the overall trend in filings remains downward and confirms that businesses facing labor shortages are holding onto workers,” wrote Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist for High Frequency Economics, in a note on Wednesday.