The four-week average drops to 377,750, the lowest since March 2020.
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Weekly jobless claims continued to decline in early August, and are at their lowest since the start of the pandemic, as government aid gradually expires, but the Delta variant could threaten the recovery.
Between August 8 and August 14, 348,000 people applied for unemployment benefit after dismissal, the lowest level since the start of the pandemic, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department. Analysts expected 370,000 new registrations, slightly less than the previous week, for which the data was also revised up slightly, to 377,000 from 375,000.
The four-week average is also declining, and stands at 377,750, also the lowest since the Covid-19 abruptly put economic activity on hold in March 2020. In total, 11.7 million people were still unemployed at the end of July, according to the most recent data available, released Thursday, or 311,787 people less than the previous week.
The job market improved sharply in July, with 943,000 jobs created and an unemployment rate falling for the second month in a row, falling to 5.4%.
However, 5.7 million jobs are still missing compared to February 2020, before the pandemic, when brutal containment measures resulted in the layoffs of more than 20 million people.
The more generous unemployment benefits paid since the start of the pandemic have already expired in half of the country’s states, and will end for all beneficiaries on September 6. The classic unemployment insurance scheme will then be in force again, with durations and amounts varying from state to state. The long-term unemployed and the self-employed will no longer receive unemployment benefit. But the Delta variant now threatens to slow the economic recovery.
“It is quite possible that the first reaction of companies to the Delta wave was to slow down the pace of recruitment, before making the more difficult decision to lay off existing staff,” warns economist Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics .
However, these data are encouraging. We expect little change over the next two weeks, but we hope to see further sharp declines in September, he adds.
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