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WASHINGTON – The number of Americans filing claims for new unemployment benefits rose last week, but remained at a historically low level, indicating that Hurricane Florence probably had a fairly modest impact on the labor market.
Initial jobless claims, an indicator of layoffs across the United States, rose from 12,000 to 214,000 seasonally adjusted in the week ending September 22, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had expected 206,000 new requests last week.
The rise last week was the biggest weekly increase since May. But even so, the claims have remained at extremely low levels. Claims were at their lowest level since December 1969, each of the previous three weeks.
Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina at the end of last week. The new published data therefore reflect the first full week during which workers made redundant because of the storm could claim benefits.
"The jump probably reflects the impact of Hurricane Florence, and claims could easily rise further next week," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. But he said the general trend is falling claims. "It's noise, no signal," he said.
The seasonally adjusted data showed that the number of claims filed in North Carolina rose from 2,174 the previous week to 10,209 last week. Claims in South Carolina increased from 1,463 to 3,362. Although these gains are large relative to the population in these states, the national impact seems rather small. Seasonally adjusted status data are released with a lag of one week.
Workers are not required to file claims immediately after losing their jobs. As a result, hurricane and flood claims may still occur in the coming weeks.
More generally, claims data show that in a tight labor market, employers are very reluctant to lay off workers. The unemployment rate has almost reached its lowest level in 18 years in recent months.
Thursday's report said the four-week moving average of claims, a more stable measure, rose from 250 to 206,250 last week, just above the 49-year low.
The number of claims made by workers for more than one week increased by 16,000 to 1,661,000 during the week ended September 15th. This figure, also known as recurring claims, is being reported a week late.
Write to Eric Morath at [email protected]
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