This post was originally published on this site
JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images The U.S. economy has slowed, but not enough to dent the strongest U.S. labor market in decades.
The numbers: The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits fell in early 2020 for the fourth week in a row, putting new jobless claims back near the lowest level in about 50 years. .
Initial jobless claims declined by 9,000 to 214,000 in the seven days ended Jan 4. the government said Thursday. The figures are seasonally adjusted.
Claims are seen as a rough measure of how many people are losing their jobs. The post 2008 recession low — and the lowest level in 50 years — was a 193,000 reading last April. New claims have mostly hovered in the low 200,000s since then.
What happened: Companies in industries such as retail and shipping hire lots of workers to handle the holiday rush and let them go afterward, though not necessarily at the same time.
New claims surged in New York, Georgia and South Carolina and sank in New Jersey, Michigan and Illinois.
The monthly average of new claims, meanwhile, dropped by 9,500 to 224,000.
The number of people already collecting unemployment benefits, known as continuing claims, jumped by 75,000 to 1.83 million to touch the highest level since April 2018.
Yet the increase mostly reflects a runup in new claims after the Thanksgiving holiday that has already faded. Continuing claims should drift lower in the weeks ahead.
Opinion: What Trump needs to do next to earn an ‘A’ in economics
Big picture: The economy creates and erases tens of thousands of jobs at the end of each year, many of them temporary positions added during the holiday season. Jobless claims often swing up and down from Thanksgiving through early January.
This year has been no different, but there’s still no evidence that layoffs are rising or the labor market is weakening. Companies say their biggest labor problem is finding skilled workers, not having too many of them.
That’s bodes well for the economy as the new year gets underway. The government on Friday is expected to report that the U.S. added about 160,000 new jobs in the final month of 2019.
Read: Fed signals no change in interest rates in 2020 in more upbeat view of the economy
Market reaction:The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.56% and S&P 500 SPX, +0.49% were set to open higher in Thursday trades. Stocks are trading at all-time highs.
The 10-year Treasury yield TMUBMUSD10Y, +0.82% edged up to 1.86%.
