The surge in Americans applying for unemployment benefits didn’t last long.
After climbing to a nearly four-year high a week earlier, the number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment assistance sank back down last week, dropping back down to 231,000 for the week ending Sept. 13.
According to statistics released by the Labor Department, that’s 33,000 fewer than the previous week, and is less than the 241,000 analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet had forecast, according to a report from The Associated Press.
The previous week, applications climbed to 264,000, their highest level since the week of Oct. 23, 2021. Last week’s figure was revised up by 1,000.
Concerns about the health of the American labor market led the Federal Reserve to cut its key interest rate by a quarter-point on Wednesday as many expected.
The quarter-point rate cut is a sign that the central bank’s focus has shifted quickly from inflation to jobs as hiring has grounded nearly to a halt in recent months. Lower interest rates could reduce borrowing costs for mortgages, car loans, and business loans, and boost growth and hiring.
Last week, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued a massive preliminary revision of U.S. job gains for the 12 months ending in March, further evidence that the labor market has not been as strong as previously thought.
The BLS’s revised figures showed that U.S. employers added 911,000 fewer jobs than originally reported in the year ending in March 2025, The report showed that job gains were tapering long before President Donald Trump rolled out his far-reaching tariffs on U.S. trading partners in April.
The department issues the revisions every year, intending to better account for new businesses and ones that had gone out of business. Final revisions will come out in February 2026.
The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the previous week of Sept. 6 fell by 7,000 to 1.92 million.
