Sept. 19 (UPI) — The Labor Department said Thursday that a seasonally adjusted 219,000 people filed for unemployment benefits last week, the lowest one-week total since May. The new total for the week ending Sept. 14 was 12,000 initial applications for the week before. It was the third time in four weeks that initial first-time applications had fallen.
The weekly count of those filing for unemployment insurance gives a snapshot of the country’s workforce stability.
First-time jobless benefit figures have not dipped under 220,000 since the week ending May 18, when 216,000 filed for unemployment benefits. On July 27, initial weekly filers reached 250,000, the highest figure in 2024. It had been as low as 194,000 for a week in January.
The four-week moving average for initial jobless benefits was 227,500, a decrease of 3,500 from the previous week’s revised figure of 231,000.
The overall number of people making unemployment insurance claims for the week ending Sept. 7 was 1.829 million, a drop of 14,000 from the previous week. The four-week moving average for everyone filing for jobless benefits reached 1,844,250, a drop of 6,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 1,850,750.