Jobs
US Jobless Claims Are an Unreliable Indicator of Tight Labor Market
A job seeker at a career fair in Long Beach, California.
Photographer: Eric Thayer/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment insurance have been defying expectations and hovering near historically low levels, but they’re not a good indicator of the state of the labor market right now, according to a Bloomberg Economics analysis.
The latest weekly data showed initial claims at 187,000 — near the lowest level of this century — and continuing claims falling to 1.81 million. The figures don’t necessarily suggest that the job market is tight, economists Anna Wong and Eliza Winger wrote in a note.