Despite headlines about layoffs in the technology sector, demand for U.S. workers remains extremely high.
New claims for unemployment benefits, which are a proxy for layoffs, dropped to 192,000, close to historic lows, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Jobless claims have been lower than 200,000 for eight out of the last nine weeks. Claims ticked up to 212,000 in early March but these were likely related to a winter break in public schools in New York.
The number of people collecting unemployment benefits after their initial week of joblessness fell by 29,000 to 1.68 million in the week prior to last. This figure is reported with a one-week lag.
The 4-week moving average of initial claims, which many economists look at as a better guide to unemployment trends, fell by 750 to 196,500.
The very low level of jobless claims this year indicates that the rapid rate hikes of the past 11 months from the Federal Reserve have not yet had much of an effect on the labor market. Fed officials, including chairman Jerome Powell, have repeatedly stressed that the labor market remains dangerously unbalanced in favor of excessive demand for workers. The fear is that this could push wages up too quickly, feeding inflation.