First-time applications for unemployment benefits rose last week to 231,000, the highest level since August, in another sign that the white-hot labor market is starting to cool off.
Thursday’s data also showed that the number of continuing claims, or applications from people who have filed for unemployment for at least one week, was 1.78 million. That’s an increase of 17,000 from the prior week, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The latest numbers come less than a week after the monthly jobs report showed the US economy added just 175,000 positions in April, less than economists expected and a steep drop-off from prior months. US employers have now added an average of 245,500 jobs per month, versus 2023’s 251,000-per-month average.
Still, hiring remains strong. Although the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.9% last month, it’s the 27th consecutive month that the jobless rate has held under 4%, matching a streak last seen in the late 1960s.
Weekly jobless claims data tends to be volatile but, while one week’s worth of data “does not a trend make,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist at Fwdbonds, “we can no longer be sure that calm seas lie ahead for the US economy if today’s weekly jobless claims are any indication.”
“Company layoffs are picking up, hinting at caution on the part of companies as they weigh the outlook for the second half of the year,” he wrote in a note Thursday.
The Federal Reserve has been battling inflation by raising its key lending rate in the hopes of slowing the economy. While the labor market has so far resisted those efforts, remaining white hot for the past 18 months despite 11 rate hikes from the central bank, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said last week that demand has “cooled from its extremely high level of a couple of years ago.”
Ian Shepherdson at Pantheon Economics said in a note Thursday: “We’d need to see at least a month of elevated readings to convince us that the trend really has turned.”
However, he cautioned that “In the run-up to the recessions of 1990-to-91 and 2001, payroll growth slowed from 150-to-200K to just about zero in only four months. The warning signs were downplayed because the most recent data looked fine, then suddenly, things changed. It’s too soon to be sure the same story is about to play out now, but the risk is higher than at any previous point in this cycle, and we are nervous.”
