First-time unemployment insurance claims have increased past expectations in the previous week. On Thursday, the Department Of Labour reported that this rise in jobless claims is despite the healing signs present in the jobs sector.
Jobless Claims Numbers Prove To Be A Worry
The count for weekly first-time jobless claims ended at 744,000 on 3rd April, much higher than the expected 694,000. The estimate was from Dow Jones surveyed economists. The count as such represents a 16,000 increase to the last week’s revised count of 728,000. The moving average over four weeks increased as well and now stands at 723,750.
In March, nonfarm payrolls saw an increase of 916,000 with the rate of unemployment falling to 6%. It has only been a week since reports of such aggressive healing of the labor markets were released. Since August, this was by far the largest gains in jobs even though the unemployment rate is still much higher than the 3.5% that was present before the pandemic.
However, there was further positive news regarding the labor front as the total of continuing jobless claims dropped to 3.73M by 16,000. This is the lowest number after 21st March 2020. Continuing claims are counted a week later to the main number in the headlines. The total stood at 3.44M at the same time last year. However, soon after the pandemic hit and there was a massive surge.
New York and California reported the largest job gains with 15,714 and 38,963 respective increases. However, Ohio and Alabama saw respective declines of 10,502 and 13,944.
Economists theorized that one factor behind the obstinately high number of claims might be filing backlogs. For some states, spikes in cases of covid can also be a reason.
Officials from the Federal Reserve stated that more progress is required for jobs before any change to the existing policy is to be considered.
