U.S. applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week, a sign that the labor market remains healthy as companies continue to retain their employees.
Jobless claim filings ticked down by 1,000 to 224,000 for the week ending March 22, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s mostly in line with the 225,000 new applications analysts forecast.
Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years.
It remains unclear when job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency, or “DOGE,” will show up in the weekly layoffs report, though the Labor Department’s February jobs report showed that the federal government shed 10,000 jobs. That’s the most since June of 2022.
Economists don’t expect the federal workforce layoffs to have much of an impact until the March jobs report, which comes out April 4.
Those layoffs are part of the to shrink the size of the through DOGE, spearheaded by billionaire .
Senior U.S. officials set the government in motion late last month dramatically expanding President Donald Trump’s efforts to scale back the workforce. Thousands of probationary employees — though two federal judges last week requiring the rehiring of thousands of those workers.
Despite showing some signs of weakening during the past year, the labor market remains healthy with plentiful jobs and relatively few layoffs.
The Labor Department reported that U.S. in February, and while the unemployment rate ticked up to a 4.1%, it remains a historically healthy figure.
Some high-profile companies have announced job cuts already this year, including , , , , and Facebook parent company Meta.
The government’s weekly jobless claims report includes a four-week average of applications, meant to even out some of the week-to-week swings. That fell by 4,750 to 224,000.
The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 15 declined by 25,000 to 1.86 million.
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