Jobless claims tick up despite robust openings
More Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week — and while layoffs remain low, it was the fifth consecutive week that claims topped the 230,000 mark and the most in almost six months.
Applications for jobless aid for the week ending July 2 rose to 235,000, up 4,000 from the previous week and the most since mid-January, the Labor Department reported Thursday. First-time applications generally track with the number of layoffs. Until early June, claims hadn't eclipsed 220,000 since January and have often been below 200,000 this year.
The four-week average for claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, inched up by 750 from the previous week, to 232,500.
The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits for the week ending June 25 rose by 51,000 from the previous week, to 1,375,000. That figure has hovered near 50-year lows for months.
Employers posted 11.3 million job openings at the end of May, down from nearly 11.7 million in April. Job openings reached 11.9 million in March, the highest level on records dating back more than 20 years. There are nearly two job openings for every unemployed person. in the coming three months — a pickup from May.
“The labor force participation rate has been slowly rising this year, with more people taking jobs,” Bill Dunkelberg, NFIB chief economist, said in a statement. “However, the labor shortage continues to be a difficult problem for small businesses. A few more good months of increased employment might get total employment back to pre-pandemic levels.”
Even so, there were some signs of softening. A net 19% of small-business owners said they plan to create new jobs in the next three months, down 7 percentage points from May.