(TheRedWire.com) – Last week, the number of Americans who are filing claims for unemployment benefits increased by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 232,000 for the week ending on May 27. This shows that despite the growing worries about a possible recession the labor market has remained tight.
According to Economists polled by Reuters, the forecasted claims for the last week were 235,000. The modest increase in the last week further shows that claims have remained critically low by historical standards despite the large interest rate increases from the Federal Reserve since March 2022.
March 2022 marked the first time that the U.S. central bank attempted its fastest monetary policy tightening campaign since the 1980s in an effort to curb the historically high inflation rate. While there has been a decline in the levels of employment growth in the past year, the labor market continues to remain strong and as of April, there were 10.1 million job openings. This means that there are 1.8 vacancies for every unemployed person, which is much higher than the 1.0-1.2 range which is usually consistent with a labor market that is not generating high inflation.
By the end of the week of May 20, the number of people who had been receiving benefits had increased by 6,000 to 1.785 million.
The Fed’s Beige Book report on Wednesday also found that it is expected that job growth is going to slow down even further. Simultaneously the labor market was assessed to be continuously “strong” in May.
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