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Just 198,000 Americans filed jobless claims last week, fewer than expected as layoffs remain
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as U.S. layoffs remain low despite growing concern about a weakening job market.
U.S. filings for jobless aid for the week ending Jan. 10 fell by 9,000 to 198,000, down from 207,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The figure was significantly less than the 215,000 that analysts polled by the data firm FactSet were expecting.
Applications for unemployment benefits are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.
Last week, the government reported that hiring remained sluggish in December, capping a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment remained low.
Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June, from 4.5% in November. Also last week, the Labor Department reported that businesses posted far fewer jobs in November than the previous month, a sign that employers aren’t yet ramping up hiring even as growth has picked up.