New weekly jobless claims held below 300,000 for back-to-back weeks as labor market conditions trudged back toward pre-pandemic levels.
The Labor Department released its jobless claims report Thursday morning, and here are the main metrics from the print compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Initial unemployment claims, week ended Oct. 16: 290,000 versus 297,000 expected and a revised 296,000 during prior week
- Continuing claims, week ended Oct. 9: 2.5 million versus 2.5 million expected, and a revised 2.6 million during prior week
Last week’s initial unemployment claims fell by a greater-than-expected margin, bringing the number of new filings back to the lowest level since March 2020. The four-week moving average for new jobless claims also dropped by 15,250 to reach 319,750 as of last week, also marking the least since March of last year.
The latest claims data reflects a labor market that has made considerable progress in reducing separations since its pandemic-era peak. However, it also still has a way to go before returning entirely to pre-virus trends. In October 2020, new filings were coming in at a weekly rate of more than 700,000, but in the same month in 2019, initial claims averaged just more than 210,000.
Click here to read the full report from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.
