Unemployment just hit an even lower low
Just when we thought they couldn’t get any lower, initial jobless claims hit a nine-month low last week. About 198,000 people filed new claims for unemployment last week, according to the Labor Department. It’s well below the already low number that was expected, and the drop continues a downward slide in initial jobless claims since the summer.
At the risk of repeating repeating ourselves, it seems to show a job market that just keeps chugging along in the face of higher interest rates. But there’s always nuance in the data.
These unexpectedly low initial jobless claims come after unexpectedly big job gains in September. Unemployment is now near historic lows, and layoffs and firings have been rarer than they were before the pandemic.
“That doesn’t mean that the [Federal Reserve’s] interest rate hikes are having no effect on the labor market,” said Julia Pollak, chief economist at job site ZipRecruiter.
She said continuing claims — among people who’ve been on unemployment more than a week — jumped more than expected. Which could mean it’s now harder to land a job.
“That suggests that the Fed’s rate hikes are affecting the labor market by slowing hiring, not by causing layoffs,” she said.
One factor could be a bit of a hangover among employers after the extreme staffing shortages of the past couple years, said Aaron Sojourner, a senior researcher at the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research.
“They realize it’s expensive to hire, it’s expensive to onboard, it’s expensive to train and integrate people in their operations,” he said.
So companies may be wary of letting go of employees, even if they are feeling uncertain about the economy, said Lydia Boussour, senior economist at EY-Parthenon.
“We are seeing some labor hoarding and companies holding on to their workers that they had such a hard time hiring in the first place,” she said.
But an increase in layoffs could be on the way. There’s been an uptick in notices under the WARN Act, which requires large employers to give workers and local officials 60-days notice if they’re planning big job cuts.
“Some of what we might be seeing in the WARN data is growing kind of bankruptcy fears,” said Aaron Terrazas, chief economist at job site Glassdoor.
He said that could be related to ongoing strikes, like the United Auto Workers strike, which will presumably resolve. Or the WARN data could reflect businesses feeling the squeeze of higher interest rates, which are probably going to stick around.
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