New weekly jobless claims came in at yet another pandemic-era low, with more progress being made in the labor market as new virus infections fall and companies compete for workers.
The Labor Department released its jobless claims report Thursday morning and here are some of the main metrics from the report compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Initial unemployment claims, week ended Oct. 30: 269,000 versus 275,000 expected, and a revised 283,000 during prior week
- Continuing claims, week ended Oct. 23: 2.10 million versus 2.14 million expected, and a revised 2.24 million during prior week
New jobless claims came in below the psychologically important 300,000 mark for a fourth straight week, and reached the lowest level since March 2020. This represented a significant improvement from last year, when new claims were coming in at a weekly pace of more than 700,000 throughout October 2020. But new weekly filings have yet to break back to pre-virus levels, since new claims were coming in at a weekly rate of just over 200,000 throughout 2019.
The total number of claimants across all programs also dipped further, reaching 2.7 million for the week ended Oct. 16, or the latest date for which data is available. This metric, which captures those claiming both regular state continuing claims and benefits from programs, has fallen sharply since early September, when federal pandemic-era enhanced unemployment benefits expired at the national level. In the same week last year, total claimants across all programs were at over 22 million.
Click here to see the full report from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.
