Requests for unemployment benefits They continued to rise during the past week on the largest scale since October 2021, when the effect of the pandemic was still impacting the US labor market, as indicated today by the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The data shows a growing perception that the labor market is beginning to cool down and suffer the effects of the stagnation of the US economy and the adjustment of interest rates of the Federal Reserve (FED).
In addition, the prospects for the coming months are not positive, since the president of the FED, Jerome Powellconfirmed yesterday that the entity will continue with more rate hikes.
Data from the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics
In the week ending June 17, 264,000 people applied for unemployment benefits for the first time after being laid off, unchanged from last week. The figure was above the 259,000 orders projected by economists, according to a survey carried out by the news agency Bloomberg.
The largest increase in requests for subsidies was in the States of Texas, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Indianawhile the steepest falls were recorded in Tennessee, Massachusetts, Idaho, Nebraska and Iowa.
On the other hand, the total number of ongoing benefits dropped to 1,759,000 people in the week ending June 10, 13,000 less than in the previous week; while the weekly average of requests for the last month -data that allows removing the volatility of a weekly index- grew to 255,750.
The latest employment report left mixed signals: on the one hand, The US economy added 339,000 jobs in May, but, at the same time, it registered an increase in its unemployment rate by three tenths to 3.7%.
This divergence -the analysts explain- is due to the fact that the report’s methodology stipulates two surveys: one to households, to extract data such as the unemployment rate; and another to companies, from where the data referring to payrolls are known.
Source: Ambito
