Workers load packages into Amazon Rivian electric trucks at an Amazon facility in Poway, California. The US job market has recovered all of the 22 million positions cut during the Covid-19 lockdowns.
After hitting the lowest level since 1969 in May, those so-called continuing claims, a proxy for hiring, have drifted higher since early October. The latest report is the first since February to show them breaching the lower end of the 1.7-1.8 million trend that prevailed in the years leading up to the coronavirus pandemic, a level seen then as emblematic of a tight labour market.
It may also be that severance payments are causing a delay in when laid-off workers apply for benefits, Simons said, though “this is very hard to quantify.” Officials see that strength as providing ample room for them to continue to raise interest rates to bring down inflation, which by their preferred measure remains nearly three times their targeted level of 2% annually even if it has recently shown signs of heading lower.