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weekly initial jobless claims The number of unemployed Americans jumped to 240,000 in the week ended Nov. 19, according to data released by the Labor Department on Wednesday.That was a sharp jump of 17,000 from an upwardly revised 222,000 the previous week, surpassing the Economists had expected 225,000.
It was the highest weekly total since Aug. 13, according to the Labor Department.
Continuing claims rose to 1.55 million for the week ended Nov. 12, an eight-month high.
With the labor market still fairly tight, jobless claims have been hovering near record lows, Even after the end of the pandemic-era lockdown, workers have flocked back.
But that may be changing — and in the short term: Big companies, especially some in the tech world, have already begun mass layoffs.
However, Eugenio Alemán, chief economist at Raymond James, said those layoffs were not necessarily reflected in last week’s claims because many tech workers had severance pay. Alemán said he was looking for signs of a general increase in jobless claims in other industries where workers were not usually Paid by severance package.
“And that still hasn’t happened today,” he said.
weekly jobless claims Economists at Oxford Economics wrote in a note Wednesday that prices are volatile — especially around holidays — and often corrected.
“As such, we would not read too much into a larger-than-expected decline in jobless claims,” they wrote.
On average, weekly jobless claims have been below 215,000 this year. Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics, wrote that while last week’s jobless claims of 240,000 were up from the average, they were still below the 250,000 a week seen in good economic times and well below the 250,000 a week seen in a recession. More than 300,000 people. Email CNN Business.
“I view the increase in layoffs through the lens of ‘bad news is good news,'” he wrote. “That said, layoffs are dire for those who lose their jobs, but it does mean that the job market is cooling, which is critical to bringing inflation down and preventing more aggressive rate hikes by the Fed.”
Zandi said he expects more layoffs “as large companies in more industries start cutting headcount” as we head into the new year.