Number of Americans who deposit Falls weekly benefits ending on March 1st

By Matt Ott, Associated Press Business Writer

Requests for American unemployment benefits dropped last week because the labor market remains solid before an expected purge of employees of the federal government.

The number of Americans depositing for unemployment benefits from 21,000 to 221,000 for the week ending on March 1, the Labor Department announced on Thursday. It is much less than the 236,000 new applications expected.

Weekly applications for unemployed services are considered an indirect indicator of layoffs, which remained mainly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for years.

The average of four weeks, which evokes part of the volatility of the week per week, increased from 250 to 224,250.

Some analysts expect the dismissals commissioned by the government’s Ministry of Efficiency to appear in the report in the weeks or months to come.

Earlier this week, two people familiar with the situation told the Associated Press that IRS wrote plans to reduce its 90,000-people labor up to half thanks to a mixture of dismissals, attrition and incited buyouts. People spoke on Tuesday on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to disclose the plans.

Local offices are part of the Trump administration efforts to reduce the size of the federal workforce thanks to the Department of Elon Musk’s government efficiency.

Already, approximately 7,000 ARS probationary employees with approximately a year or less service were laid off from the organization in February.

Last week, senior US officials made the government reduce the reduction in staff via a memo in considerably expanding President Donald Trump’s efforts to reduce the workforce. Thousands of probation employees have already been dismissed, and now the republican administration is focusing on career officials with public service protection.

Government agencies were responsible for submitting by March 13, their plans for a reduction in force, which would not only be dismissed but completely eliminates the posts.

Despite some signs of weakening in the past year, the job market remains healthy with many jobs and relatively few layoffs.

The Labor Department said that US employers added 143,000 jobs in January, much less than the 256,000 job gains in December. However, the unemployment rate is reduced to 4%, signaling a still healthy labor market.

Overall, while layoffs remain low according to historical standards, some high -level companies have already announced job cuts this year.

Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines and Facebook Meta parent company all cut their workforce already in 2025.

The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of February 22 increased from 42,000 to 1.9 million.

Originally published: March 6, 2025 at 6:09 am PST