U.S. applications for unemployment benefits held steady last week, the Associated Press reports, 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.
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.
It remains unclear when job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (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.
