From November 14 to 20, 199,000 people registered as unemployed to receive an allowance. Analysts were forecasting 265,000 registrations.
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New weekly jobless claims in the United States fell in mid-November to their lowest level in more than half a century, confirming the robust recovery of the American labor market which had been heavily affected during the pandemic.
From November 14 to 20, 199,000 people registered as unemployed to receive an allowance, according to data released Wednesday by the Department of Labor, on the eve of Thanksgiving. Analysts expected a significantly higher figure of 265,000 registrations.
We have to go back to November 15, 1969 to find any trace of such a low figure in the country’s statistics.
“Weekly demands fell more than expected last week,” notes Rubeela Farooqi, chief economist for HFE.
“This level has fallen below the 2019 average of 218,000, which is a positive signal for the labor market. The demand for employees remains strong in a labor market where the wage bill and the working population remain well below their pre-pandemic levels, ”adds Ms. Farooqi.
During the previous week, at the beginning of November, 270,000 new applications had been filed, according to revised data upwards and also published on Thursday.
The total number of recipients of aid, which is calculated two weeks late, is 2.432 million people, a drop of just over 750,000 compared to the previous week.
At the height of the pandemic, tens of millions of Americans were unemployed after massive waves of layoffs caused by restrictions put in place to limit the spread of the virus.
Requests had started to decline in the second half of 2020, but still remained at the start of the year at levels well above those before the pandemic.
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