"The claims data may be more volatile in the upcoming weeks due to the seasonal adjustment process but, looking past that noise, we expect claims to remain around 200,000 as layoffs remain low amid tight labor market conditions," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said in a research note.
Altogether, 1.7 million Americans were collecting traditional unemployment aid the week that ended December 18, the lowest since March 2020 and down by 140,000 from the week before. The weekly claims numbers, a proxy for layoffs, have fallen steadily most of the year. Employers are reluctant to let workers go at a time when it's so tough to find replacements. The United States had a near-record 11 million job openings in October, and 4.2 million Americans quit their jobs — just off September's record 4.4 million — because there are so many opportunities.