The number of new claims for unemployment benefits in the United States has fallen to a 19-month low in the past week. It was even lower than analysts’ expectations. The absolute number of unemployment aid recipients came in below the level from early April last year.
In the week ending October 9, 293 thousand people applied for unemployment benefits in the United States. That’s 36 thousand fewer than the previous week and 23 thousand fewer than analysts approached by Reuters expected. This is already the second weekly decline in a row.
However, the number of benefit claims still hovers at the top of the interval between 250 and 300 thousand people, which is considered a condition consistent with the equilibrium state of the US labour market. But the absolute number of unemployment aid recipients has already come in below the 6.15 million people level that prevailed in the US at the start of last April.
It is the fitness of the US labour market that is currently a key indicator for the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision-making. Indeed, inflation has returned to 13-year highs in the US, and the central bank is not keen to take a rash with its policy tightening so as not to hamper the economic recovery.
