The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits for the first time in four months surged last week, but the labour market is still tight despite a decline in demand for labour due to higher interest rates.
Hurricane Fiona was partly to blame for the larger-than-anticipated increase in unemployment claims that the Labor Department published on Thursday, with files increasing in Puerto Rico, which was devastated by the storm in the second half of September.
Hurricane Ian, which wreaked havoc in Florida and the Carolinas at the end of September, will probably skew claims data in the upcoming weeks.
According to Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pennsylvania, ‘it’s difficult to gauge how much the labour market is cooling from early claims and this will be the true for several weeks due to the distortions from Hurricane Fiona and Ian.’
For the week ending October 1, initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 219,000. The gain last week was the largest since June. There were 3,000 fewer applications submitted than originally shown in the data for the previous week. Reuters polled economists, who predicted 203,000 applications for the most recent week.
Last week, unadjusted claims rose by 13,264 to 167,083. Puerto Rico claims increased by 3,917, or nearly 30% of applicants. Typically, the archipelago accounts for less than 1% of all national claims.
Post Your Comments