Washington, Sept. 24 (BUS): The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week rose for the second week in a row to 351,000, in a sign that the delta type of coronavirus may disrupt the labor market recovery, at least temporarily.
Thursday’s report from the Labor Department showed that claims for unemployment benefits rose by 16,000 from the previous week. With the labor market strengthening, jobless claims, which generally track layoffs, have fallen since past 900,000 early this year, reflecting the reopening of the economy after the pandemic recession. The four-week moving average of claims, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, posted its sixth straight decline – to a pandemic low of 336,000.
Claims for unemployment benefits remain fairly high: Before the virus tore through the economy in March 2020, they were generally about 220,000 a week, the AP reports.
In a research report, Macro Consultants concluded that the recent jump in jobless claims — particularly last week in California and Virginia — likely reflects a technical problem with claims processing: “At the moment, the jump in claims in the last two weeks is not worrisome yet, But it is definitely worth watching closely in the coming weeks.”
America’s employers have rapidly increased their hiring since they cut 22 million jobs in March and April 2020 as the pandemic — and the shutdowns that were meant to contain — nearly brought economic activity to a standstill. Since then, the economy has restored about 17 million jobs as the rollout of vaccines encouraged companies to open and expand working hours and Americans to return to shop, travel and eat out.
But employment, which averaged more than 585,000 a month this year, slowed to just 235k in August, as the delta variable disrupted the recovery. Restaurants and bars cut nearly 42,000 jobs last month as COVID-19 cases spread.
Overall, 2.8 million Americans were receiving unemployment benefits during the week of September 11, up 131,000 from the previous week.
Earlier this month, more than 8 million people lost all of their unemployment benefits with the expiration of two federal programs that covered temporary job workers and people who have been unemployed for more than six months. These emergency programs were put in place in March last year to help ease the economic hardship caused by the pandemic.
An additional 2.7 million people who were receiving regular state unemployment assistance lost a $300 federal unemployment supplement last week.
RAE