In the United States, the number of applications for unemployment benefits fell by seven thousand to 411,000 in the week ending June 19. There has been a significant decrease year-on-year, but it is still about twice as high as before the coronavirus crisis.
According to the US Department of Labor, the weekly number of new applications for unemployment benefits should be between 200,000 and 250,000, which can be considered a state consistent with the labor market balance. But the United States is slowly moving toward that number, as other economic indicators suggest that the US economic recovery is picking up pace.
Gross domestic product growth reached 6.4 percent on an anualized basis in the first quarter of this year after a revision. Some economists polled by Reuters expect the US economy’s output to reach as much as 10 percent in the second quarter. This is due to massive fiscal stimulus in the form of packages adopted under President Trump, as well as those that followed under the new White House chief of staff, Joe Biden.
The US economic recovery is also illustrated by data on changes in ready-made production stocks, which decreased by about 1% month-on-month. The biggest drop in stocks was in means of transport, by almost six percent.
