This archive report was first published on 28 October 2021.
On October 28, 2021, the Labor Department reported a significant decline in new unemployment aid filings, marking a fresh pandemic low.
The number of new seasonally adjusted jobless benefit claims filed in the week ended October 23 stood at 281,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the prior week's revised total and lower than analysts had forecast.
This marked the fourth consecutive week that the closely watched labor market indicator had decreased, and the third week in which it had set a new low since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March 2020.
According to Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics, the data confirmed a strong downward trend in unemployment claims, which he predicted would continue to improve as infections from the Delta variant of COVID-19 dropped.
Shepherdson forecast that as economic activity revived post-Delta, the bar for layoffs would rise, leading to a decrease in claims and a re-acceleration of payroll growth.
As of October 9, more than 2.8 million people were claiming unemployment benefits under all programs, a decrease of almost 450,000 from the previous week after the government's pandemic unemployment programs were cut off in September.
