Between the 1is and on August 7, 375,000 people registered for unemployment benefits after being laid off, 12,000 less than the week before.
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Weekly jobless claims fell a bit in early August in the United States, with the labor market continuing to recover despite the threat now posed by the Delta variant of Covid-19, according to data released Thursday by the Department of Labor.
Between the 1is and on August 7, 375,000 people registered to receive unemployment benefits after a layoff, down 12,000 from the previous week, for which the data was revised up slightly.
This is better than expected by analysts, who expected a very small decline, and expected 383,000 registrations.
On the other hand, the four-week average goes up a little, and stands at 396,250, 1,750 more than the average of the previous four weeks. Registrations have indeed changed in a jagged way throughout the month of July.
The total number of people still in unemployment in mid-July fell sharply, with just over 12 million beneficiaries, according to the most recent data available, also released on Thursday, or 919,593 people less than the previous week.
The economic situation is indeed improving, but the elimination, by half of the States, of the more generous unemployment benefits that were paid since the start of the pandemic is probably also for something.
September 6 will mark the return to the usual unemployment benefit system for the whole country, with durations and amounts that vary from state to state. The long-term unemployed, in particular, will no longer receive anything.
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.
And the Delta variant now threatens economic recovery.
Employment is one of Joe Biden’s priorities which, to ensure a sustainable economic recovery, counts on two massive investment plans.
The first, which concerns infrastructure, was adopted Wednesday in the Senate. But it will still have to pass in front of the House of Representatives, before being definitively adopted and being able to receive the signature of Joe Biden.
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