U.S. Jobless Claims Fall to a New Pandemic-Era Low

For the first time since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, weekly unemployment filings dropped below 300,000 claims. The U.S. job market is continuing to show signs of recovery thanks to a rebound in demand for workers and a slowdown in layoffs. Initial unemployment claims, a proxy for layoffs, dropped to a seasonally adjusted 293,000 filings in the week-ending October 9, according to the most recent data release from the U.S. Department of Labor. That was a decrease of 36,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 329,000 and well below economist’s expectations of around 319,000 claims. Still, the level of new claims remains above the average weekly pace prior to the pandemic in 2019, when initial weekly claims averaged 218,000. Since the onset of the pandemic, nearly 89.9 million Americans have filed initial unemployment insurance claims.