The jobs market’s progress appears to have stalled, with jobless claims repeatedly coming in at high levels and no longer steadily declining as they did this spring.
New claims for unemployment benefits fell to 400,000 in the week ended July 24, 24,000 below the upwardly revised figure for the previous week.
This is the ninth consecutive week in which new claims, which are a proxy for layoffs, have been reported in a range between 365,000 and 425,000. The four-week average of claims is 394,000, an incease of 8,000 from the previous week’s range.
The lack of progress in claims is something of a mystery to many analysts. Many employers have complained that they cannot find enough workers and yet hundreds of thousands of workers appear to be losing their jobs every week.
Continuing claims for July 17 rose to 3,269,000, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Continuing claims get reported with a one week delay. The 4-week moving average was 3,290,750, a decrease of 53,750 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 21, 2020.
The federal government launched a variety of new programs to extend unemployment benefits to those normally not eligible. These get reported with a three-week delay. The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending July 10 was 13,156,252, an increase of 582,403 from the previous week.