Applications for unemployment benefits in the U.S. remained consistent last week, signaling that the labor market is robust, as employers continue to retain their workforce.
According to the Labor Department’s report on Thursday, the number of jobless claims decreased by 1,000 to 224,000 for the week ending March 22. This figure closely aligns with the forecast of 225,000 new claims by analysts.
Weekly jobless claims serve as an indicator of layoffs and have generally stayed between 200,000 and 250,000 over the past few years.
The timing of job cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) remains uncertain as to when they will reflect in the weekly layoffs report. Notably, the Labor Department’s February jobs report revealed a decline of 10,000 jobs in the federal government—the highest since June 2022.
Economists anticipate that the impact of federal workforce layoffs will become more evident in the March jobs report, scheduled for release on April 4.
These layoffs are part of the Trump administration’s push to reduce the federal workforce size through DOGE, an initiative led by billionaire Elon Musk.
High-ranking U.S. officials initiated this downsizing at the end of the previous month, through a memorandum broadening President Donald Trump’s objectives to downsize the workforce. Thousands of probationary workers had already been dismissed, although two federal judges recently ordered the reinstatement of several thousand.
The labor market, despite indications of weakening over the last year, continues to thrive with an abundance of jobs and relatively minimal layoffs.
In February, the Labor Department announced that U.S. employers had introduced 151,000 jobs, and even though the unemployment rate slightly increased to 4.1%, it remains a notably strong figure historically.
While some high-profile employers have reported job reductions this year, including Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, and Meta, the four-week average of unemployment claims—the government’s measure to average out weekly fluctuations—decreased by 4,750 to 224,000.
For the week of March 15, the total count of Americans receiving unemployment benefits fell by 25,000 to 1.86 million.