Fewer workers sought initial unemployment benefits last week, keeping that number at historically healthy levels.
According to the Labor Department, applications for assistance for the week ending Jan. 24 fell to 209,000, a drop of 1,000 requests. Analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting 205,000 new applications, the Associated Press reported.
The drop in applications comes despite announcements from several large companies that layoffs are coming. UPS, Amazon and Dow have all announced job losses recently.
Earlier this month, the government reported a lull in hiring in December, with employers adding just 50,000 jobs, nearly unchanged from the 56,000 jobs added in November, the Labor Department said. The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, the first drop in that rate since June, from 4.5% in November.
According to the AP report, the economy gained 584,000 jobs in 2025, an average of around 50,000 per month. That’s sharply lower than the more than 2 million added in 2024, which amounts to an average of nearly 170,000 per month.
The 2025 numbers represent the smallest annual job gains since the COVID-19 pandemic decimated the job market in 2020. Outside of recessions, it’s the slimmest annual increase since 2003, the AP reported.
