The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment benefits rose by 18,000 to 241,000 in the week ended April 26, according to the data released by the Labor Department on Thursday. This figure exceeded the median forecast of 223,000 by economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Meanwhile, the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits rose to 1.92 million in the week ended April 19, the highest since 2021 and also beyond economists' expectations.
The initial jobless claims in the US jumped to the highest level since February in the week after Easter. Due to the uncertainty of the economic outlook, the number of initial jobless claims has been in a downturn. Although holiday factors often lead to data distortion, the current fluctuation has still raised market alarms. The increase in the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits indicates that the re - employment cycle for the unemployed is lengthening. Moreover, the four - week moving average, which is used to measure the trend, also rose to 226,000, helping to smooth out the weekly fluctuations.
The situation in the labor market is further complicated by other factors. The Challenger consultancy's monitoring data shows that although the number of planned layoffs in the US fell to 105,400 in April, the ADP employment report released on Wednesday shows that the hiring speed of US enterprises has dropped to the lowest level in nine months, and some service industries have also seen layoffs. This situation forms an expected gap with the non - farm data concerned by the Federal Reserve. Although economists generally expect that the unemployment rate in April, which will be released on Friday, will remain low at 4.2%, the abnormal fluctuation of the initial claims data has cast a shadow over the labor market.
