According to the latest weekly unemployment insurance report released by the US Department of Labor on August 20, in the week ending August 15, the number of initial claims for unemployment assistance in the United States was 206,000. This is a decrease of 6,000 from the revised figure of 212,000 from the previous week and lower than the 210,000 economists surveyed by Reuters had anticipated.
Data from this year shows that the number of initial claims for unemployment assistance has been fluctuating between 189,000 and 230,000. Currently, it remains at the lower end of this range. This indicates that despite soft hiring in US businesses, the number of layoffs remains low.
The July employment data showed that the US unemployment rate fell slightly again to 4.1%, remaining at historically low levels.
Given the stable labor market and mild signs of inflation, Reuters believes that there is a higher likelihood of the Federal Reserve maintaining interest rates unchanged in September.
The report on claiming unemployment benefits indicates that in the week ending August 8, the number of people continuing to receive unemployment benefits increased by 18,000, reaching 1.799 million after seasonal adjustments. This indicator is usually considered as a reference to observe the ability of the job market to absorb the unemployed, as the number of ongoing claimants typically decreases when people find new jobs more quickly and stop receiving benefits.