Unemployment benefits

The number of Americans filing initial claims for unemployment benefits during the week stood at 219,000. Such data was released by the US Department of Labor on Thursday.

The number of applications for seven days ended October 1, increased by 29 thousand compared to the adjusted figure for the previous week (190 thousand).

Economists, interviewed by Bloomberg agency, forecasted that this indicator would increase to 204,000.

The four-week moving average rose by 250 to 206,500.

It is worth noting that a separate report released Thursday by global employment firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas showed that US employers announced 29,989 job cuts in September, up 46.4% from August. The job cuts, led by retailers, were up 67.6% on last year. However, layoffs this year were down 21% compared with the first nine months of 2021.

Employers also announced plans to hire 380,014 workers last month, the lowest since September 2011.

Also, the US government said on Tuesday that job vacancies fell by 1.1 million, the biggest drop since April 2020, to 10.1 million on the last day of August. However, economists do not expect mass layoffs, saying companies were wary of laying off their workers after hiring difficulties last year as the COVID-19 pandemic forced some people out of work, in part because of lingering illness caused by the virus.

Jobless claims generally reflect layoffs, which have remained historically low since the initial purge of more than 20 million jobs at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in spring 2020.

Recent employment data showed that the labour market may be cooling slightly, an important factor for the Federal Reserve when it meets early next month to decide whether to raise its main lending rate again.