The number of Americans filing new jobless claims surprisingly fell last week, suggesting that job growth is likely to remain strong in February.
Initial claims for national jobless benefits fell by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 201,000 for the week ended Feb. 17, the Labor Department reported on Thursday. Economists interviewed by Reuters had forecast 218,000 claims for the latest week.
The claims are at a low level, despite high-profile dismissals at the start of the year. The difficulty in finding labor during and after the Covid-19 pandemic has generally caused employers to refuse to reduce the number of workers. Worker productivity also increased while the economy continued to grow despite a large interest rate hike from the Fed.
Minutes of the US central bank's January 30-31 meeting published on Wednesday showed that policymakers continued to see the labor market as "strong," but some of them "said that recent job gains were concentrated in several sectors, which, in their view, indicates a downside risk to job prospects.”
Since March 2022, the Fed has increased its key policy rate by 525 basis points to the current range of 5.25%-5.50%.
The claims data covers the period in which the government surveyed businesses for the nonfarm payrolls component of the February jobs report. The economy added 353,000 jobs in January.
The number of people receiving benefits after the initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, fell by 27,000 to 1.862 million during the week ended Feb. 10, the claims report showed.
