Just 184,000 Americans filed an initial jobless claim last week, the lowest number since 1969.
Unemployment claims have been steadily falling all year, a sign that companies are reluctant to terminate their workers in a tight labor market.
“The four-week moving average, which smooths out week-to-week ups and downs, fell below 219,000, lowest since the pandemic hit the United States hard in March 2020,” reports The Associated Press. At the beginning of the year, weekly initial jobless claims topped out at 900,000.
“The overriding dynamic in the job market of late has been this shortage of workers,” Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate, told The Wall Street Journal. “The issue of fresh job loss has not been key for many months now.”
Overall, 1.95 million Americans are receiving unemployment benefits from the government. “The number was about 10 times that level a year ago,” reports CNBC.
“Rising prices and the coronavirus continue to complicate the pace of business activity and hiring,” adds Bloomberg “Job growth last month registered its smallest gain this year as widespread labor shortages persist.”
But government spending has clearly eased the economic strain wrought by the pandemic. The AP provides key context:
Massive government aid and the rollout of vaccines helped revive the economy and the job market by giving Americans the confidence and financial wherewithal to go on a shopping spree, often online, for goods such as lawn furniture and coffee makers. Since April last year, the United States has regained nearly 18.5 million jobs. But the economy is still 3.9 million jobs short of where it stood in February 2020 and the prospects for the economy remain vulnerable to COVID variants such as omicron.
