Job Claims Fall to Seven-Month Low as Employers Hold the Line on Layoffs

Despite plenty of headlines about layoffs, American companies are not letting go of many workers.

Americans filed 216,000 new applications for unemployment benefits last week, down 6,000 from the prior week and marking the lowest level since mid-April, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.

The decline defied economists’ expectations for claims to rise to 225,000 and suggests companies remain reluctant to cut workers despite mounting economic headwinds and a string of high-profile layoff announcements.

The number of Americans continuing to collect unemployment benefits edged up to 1.96 million for the week ended Nov. 15, hovering near levels last seen during the pandemic recovery. While initial filings remain relatively low by historical standards, the uptick in continuing claims points to a more challenging environment for job seekers trying to land new positions.

The data paint a picture of a labor market in transition: Employers are pulling back sharply on hiring but haven’t yet resorted to widespread workforce reductions. Companies including HP, ConocoPhillips, General Motors, Paramount, Target, UPS, Verizon, and Amazon have announced plans to eliminate positions in recent weeks, though those cuts haven’t shown up meaningfully in unemployment statistics.

The weekly claims figures can be volatile around holidays, and on an unadjusted basis, new applications jumped last week ahead of Thanksgiving. The four-week moving average, which smooths out such fluctuations, declined to 223,750.

The labor market’s cooling has caught the attention of Federal Reserve officials, who cited employment concerns when cutting interest rates at their past two meetings. But policymakers are split on whether to deliver another rate reduction at their December gathering as they weigh persistent inflation against signs of labor-market softening.

That uncertainty is filtering through to American workers. Consumer confidence dropped in November by the most in seven months, driven partly by dimmer views on employment prospects. A separate October survey found that 55 percent of employed Americans worry about losing their jobs, while nearly half believe it would take four months or longer to find comparable work if they were laid off.

Continuing claims have trended higher since September, suggesting that while companies aren’t shedding workers en masse, those who do lose jobs are taking longer to find new ones, a shift from the rapid job-switching that characterized the pandemic-era labor market.