US filings for jobless aid rise modestly to 212K as layoffs remain at healthy levels
ABC News
Slightly more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as layoffs remain at relatively healthy levels
WASHINGTON -- Slightly more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as layoffs remain at relatively healthy levels.
The number of Americans filing for jobless aid for the week ending Feb. 21 rose by 4,000 to 212,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s in line with the forecasts of analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet.
Filings for unemployment benefits are viewed as representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.
Earlier this month, the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers added a surprisingly strong 130,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate fell to 4.3% from 4.4%. However, government revisions cut 2024-2025 U.S. payrolls by hundreds of thousands, reducing the number of jobs created last year to just 181,000. That’s about one-third of the previously reported 584,000 and the weakest since the pandemic year of 2020.
While weekly layoffs have remained in a historically low range mostly between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years, a number of high-profile companies have announced job cuts recently, including UPS, Amazon, Dow and the Washington Post in recent weeks.
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