Unemployment claims total 340,000, lowest level since March 2020

Initial unemployment insurance claims fell last week to their lowest level since March 2020, another sign that the labor market is gradually improving since the Covid-19 era, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.

The first jobless claims totaled 340,000 for the week ended August 28, against 345,000 Dow Jones. This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020, when the first claims stood at 256,000, just before the coronavirus pandemic caused a historic rush for unemployment benefits.

The level of initial claims for the previous week has been revised upward by 1,000 from 353,000 to 354,000.

The level of continuing claims, the measure of continuing benefits, was 2.75 million, down 160,000 from the revised level of the previous week. The drop in the number of pending claims also represents the lowest level of insured unemployment since the start of the Covid era.

Economists in search of even more robust job creation noted that federal unemployment benefits, a safety net for those who lost their jobs during the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic, were due to expire on the 6th. September. Others noted that with public schools starting to open across the United States, parents may finally be able to return to the office.

“At the end of the day, we now have the smallest number of initial claim filings and the lowest level of ongoing claims since everything changed in March of last year,” wrote Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at Bleakley. Advisory Group. “Just listen to any business looking to grow and you’ll hear stories of how hard it is to find positions, so it makes sense that claims will continue to drop.”

“We will of course now hear what will happen in the coming weeks as classrooms fill up, hopefully without incident, parents return to work and additional benefits expire,” he said. added.

The total number of continuous weeks claimed for benefits in all programs in all states for the week ending August 14 was 12.19 million, an increase of 178,526 from the previous week. There were 29.75 million weekly benefit claims filed across all programs in the comparable week in 2020.

The jobless claims data comes a day ahead of the Department of Labor’s all-important monthly employment report, a detailed update that Wall Street uses as an indicator of the broader U.S. labor market.

This report will show how the US labor market fared in August. Economists expect US employers to add 720,000 payrolls last month and the unemployment rate to drop to 5.2% from 5.4%.