US weekly jobless claims fall; unemployment rolls shrink
unemployment benefits fell last week, suggesting the labor market continued to chug along and that the abrupt slowdown in job growth in October was an aberration.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 217,000 for the week ended Nov. 9, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 223,000 claims for the latest week.
Claims surged in early October amid distortions from Hurricanes Helene and Milton as a well as a strike by factory workers at Boeing, but layoffs have remained historically low, which is underpinning the economy.
«While many employment-related indicators point to a significant softening in labor market conditions this year, that change has not carried over to the unemployment insurance data thus far,» said Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP.
Though it might take some time for the areas devastated by Helene to recover, economists are optimistic that job growth will regain steam in November also as the Boeing strike ended, allowing the plane maker to scrap rolling furloughs it had implemented to conserve cash. Nonfarm payrolls increased by a mere 12,000 jobs in October, the fewest in nearly four years.
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