The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, the Associated Press reports, indicating a still-healthy U.S. labor market.
U.S. jobless claims filings fell by 2,000 to 220,000 for the week ending March 8, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s fewer than the 226,000 new applications analysts forecast.
The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week swings, ticked up by 1,500 to 226,000. The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 1 fell by 27,000 to 1.87 million.
It’s not clear when job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) will show up in the weekly layoffs report, though some analysts expect them to surface in data in the coming weeks.
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. Despite showing some signs of weakening during the past year, the labor market remains healthy with plentiful jobs and relatively few layoffs, but some high-profile companies have announced job cuts already this year.
Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, and Facebook parent company Meta have all trimmed their workforces already in 2025.
