The number of Americans who applied for unemployment assistance was up slightly last week, though they remained historically low.
Some 207,000 U.S. workers applied for unemployment benefits for the week ending Sept. 30, according to statistics released Thursday by the U.S. Labor Department. That’s a rise of some 2,000 claims over the previous week.
The four-week moving average of claims fell by 2,500 to 208,750.
The Federal Reserve opted to leave its benchmark borrowing rate alone at its meeting two weeks ago, it is well into the second year of its battle to knock down a stubborn inflation rate. The Fed has raised its benchmark rate 11 times since March 2022 in its fight to slow down hiring and breingh down wages.
There’s some question as to whether it’s working. On Tuesday, the government reported that American employers posted 9.6 million job openings in August, up from 8.9 million in July. It’s the first increase in three months. Analysts were expecting vacancies to remain flat from July.
The government also said U.S. employers added 187,000 jobs in August. Though the unemployment rate ticked up to 3.8%, it’s still historically low. The Labor Department was scheduled to issue its September jobs report on Friday.
U.S. businesses have been adding an average of about 236,000 jobs per month this year, down from the pandemic surge of the previous two years, but still a strong number, the Associated Press reported. Overall, 1.67 million people were collecting unemployment benefits the week that ended Sept. 23, about 5,000 fewer than the previous week.
