US joblessness claims fall as New York’s contribution to the decline surges

March 16, 2023 | 10:28 am

Applications for benefits unemployment in the United States they registered a decrease last week, driven by the collapse in New York, reversing the increase suffered the previous week.

According to data from the Labor Department shared this Thursday, unemployment claims during the week ending March 11 stood at 192,000that is, there was a decrease of 20,000 applications.

Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims

Initial claims were 192,000 for the week ending 3/11 (-20,000).

Insured unemployment was 1,684,000 for the week ending 3/4 (-29,000).

— U.S. Department of Labor (@USDOL) March 16, 2023

New York was the city that paid the most to the fall, thanks to school workers such as bus drivers and janitors, who negotiated into their contracts the ability to file for unemployment benefits during school breaks, said Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Santander US Capital Markets LLC.

Every year we see these brief spikes in claim requests after the week-long winter and spring breaks in New York City schools.

indicated the specialist in a note.

With unadjusted data, applications fell to 217,444 when New York undid most of last week’s rally. During that period, applications increased in California.

Continuous claims, which include people who have received unemployment benefits for a week or more, fell by 29,000 to 1.68 million in the week ending March 4.

Learn more: Meta goes for the second round of layoffs; will cut 10,000 jobs

Labor market strength

The data shows strength in an extremely tight labor marketmarked by strong job creation, millions of job openings and low unemployment.

However, the salary increase measures are slowing down and they are still far behind inflation, which would be directly affecting consumer spending.

This information, coupled with decline of the banking sector before the bankruptcy of Silicon Valley Bank and the concern for Credit Suisse, they will represent a challenge for the next monetary decision of the Federal Reserve (Fed, for its acronym in English).

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With information from Bloomberg