By Matt Ott, Associated Press Business Writer
A little more Americans asked for unemployment benefits last week, but the job market remains largely healthy despite an ongoing trade war.
Unemployment complaint deposits increased from 4,000 to 223,000 for the week ending on April 5, the Labor Department announced on Thursday. It is less than the 225,000 new applications provided by analysts.
Weekly applications for unemployment services are considered an indirect indicator of layoffs and have mainly have pongs between 200,000 and 250,000 in recent years.
Even if President Donald Trump took a 90 -day break on most of his generalized pricing increases on Wednesday, concerns remain concerning a global economic slowdown which could upset what was an incredibly resilient labor market.
Like his commitment to establishing prices, Trump’s promise radically reduce the workforce of the federal government is fully in motion.
It is not clear when the job cuts commanded by the Ministry of Government Effectiveness – or “Doge”, led by Elon Musk – will surface in the weekly data from layoffs,
Federal agencies that have announced layoffs or planning cuts include the Ministry of Health and Social Services, IRS, Small Business Administration, Veterans and Ministry of Education.
Despite some signs of weakening in the past year, the job market remains healthy with many jobs and relatively few layoffs.
Last week, the government said that US employers added 228,000 surprisingly solid jobs in March and although the unemployment rate increased up to 4.2%, it is a healthy figure according to historical standards.
Some high -level companies have already announced job cuts this year, including Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines and Facebook Meta parent company.
The average four -week applications, which aims to smooth some of the weekly weekly oscillations, has been unchanged at 223,000.
The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 29 fell from 43,000 to 1.85 million.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
