Unemployment claims reach highest level in three months

The number of jobless claims filed by Americans last week has jumped to its highest level in three months. This is another sign that the ongoing wave of the Omicron variant is hitting the job market. The US Labor Department reported on Thursday that 286,000 applied for first-time unemployment benefits last week, which is an increase from the 55,000 from the previous week. That's the highest number of jobless claims since mid-October. 

Economists attribute this jump in claims to the rise in coronavirus cases. Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist with Oxford Economists said, "The rise in claims reflects both an increase in layoffs due to the surge in Covid cases as well as an added boost from large seasonal adjustment factors." The latest surge of the virus has weighed on the strong comeback from the coronavirus recession of 2020. Jobless claims are a proxy for layoffs and had fallen steadily for a year. In late 2021, these numbers had fallen below the pre-pandemic average of around 220,000 a week. 

According to the Census Bureau, nearly 9 million workers said they weren't working in the first week of January because they tested positive for covid 19 or because they were caring for someone who had the virus. Overall, the job market remains tight as illnesses keep workers out of their jobs. 

Source: CBS News