{"id":640851,"date":"2026-05-01T13:39:37","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:39:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640851\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:39:37","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:39:37","slug":"weekly-u-s-jobless-claims-fall-to-lowest-level-in-more-than-five-decades","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/640851\/","title":{"rendered":"Weekly U.S. jobless claims fall to lowest level in more than five decades"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Zoe Lloyd, a 21-year-old student at Northern Arizona University, works from her laptop at Sosta in Flagstaff, Ariz.Cheyanne Mumphrey\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits tumbled to their lowest level more than 50 years last week despite a number of economic headwinds including the war in Iran<\/a>.<\/p>\n

U.S. jobless aid applications for the week ending April 25 fell by 26,000 to 189,000, down from the previous week\u2019s 215,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That\u2019s well below the 214,000 new applications analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting.<\/p>\n

Filings for unemployment benefits are considered a proxy for U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.<\/p>\n

Key measure of U.S. inflation jumps to highest level in three years as gas prices soar<\/a><\/p>\n

According to High Frequency Economics, this week\u2019s number for new jobless aid applications was the fewest since September of 1969.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is nothing to worry about in this report. YET!,\u201d HFE\u2019s Chief Economist Carl Weinberg wrote in a note to clients. \u201cAt some point, elevated energy costs and prices for materials will cause firms to lay off marginal workers to protect profit margins.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite dwindling layoffs shown in government data, the Iran war, now in its ninth week, has injected a large degree of uncertainty about how it will affect the U.S. and global economies even as Iran and the U.S. remain under a ceasefire agreement.<\/p>\n

U.S. seeks help from allies to reopen Strait of Hormuz as crude prices surge<\/a><\/p>\n

U.S. financial markets have rebounded near record levels and prices for a barrel of U.S. crude oil remain elevated around US$104 per barrel. That\u2019s better than the US$112 earlier this month, but still 50-per-cent higher than before the war began. Gas prices also much higher since the war began \u2013 AAA says the national average Thursday was at US$4.30 a gallon \u2013 saddling businesses and consumers with higher costs.<\/p>\n

Also Thursday, the government reported that a key inflation measure jumped in March<\/a> as gas prices soared, the latest sign that the Iran war is driving the cost of living sharply higher.<\/p>\n

An inflation gauge monitored by the Federal Reserve rose 0.7 per cent in March from February, up sharply from the previous month, the Commerce Department said. Compared with a year ago, prices rose 3.5 per cent, the biggest increase in almost three years.<\/p>\n

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core inflation also rose.<\/p>\n

This comes at a time when U.S. inflation was already above the Federal Reserve\u2019s 2-per-cent target. On Wednesday, the Fed opted to leave its benchmark rate where it was<\/a>, citing economic uncertainty caused by instability in the Middle East and persistently high inflation.<\/p>\n

Lower interest rates can boost the economy and hiring, but also tend to fuel inflation. Fed officials voted to cut rates three times to close 2025 out of concern for a weakening job market.<\/p>\n

More government data released Thursday showed that the U.S. economy expanded<\/a> at a modest 2-per-cent pace from January through March. That\u2019s up from a lacklustre 0.5-per-cent expansion the last three months of 2025, hampered by the 43-day government shutdown.<\/p>\n

The Labor Department reported earlier this month that U.S. employers added an unexpectedly strong 178,000 new jobs in March, nudging the unemployment rate back down to 4.3 per cent. That followed a surprisingly large loss of 92,000 jobs in February. Revisions also have trimmed 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls, a sign that the labour market remains under strain.<\/p>\n

A number of high-profile companies have cut jobs recently, including Morgan Stanley, Block, UPS, Amazon and several other tech companies.<\/p>\n

Weekly jobless aid applications have stabilized in a range mostly between 200,000 and 250,000 since the U.S. economy emerged from the pandemic recession. However, hiring began slowing about two years ago and tapered further in 2025 due to President Donald Trump\u2019s erratic tariff rollouts, his purge of the federal work force and the lingering effects of high interest rates meant to control inflation.<\/p>\n

Employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs last year, compared with about 1.5 million in 2024, according to the data firm FactSet.<\/p>\n

The American labour market appears stuck in what economists call a \u201clow-hire, low-fire\u201d state that has kept the unemployment rate historically low, but has left those out of work struggling to find a new job. The recent artificial intelligence boom and the investment required to develop it is also making companies reluctant to hire.<\/p>\n

The Labor Department\u2019s report Thursday showed that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, came in at 207,500, about 3,500 lower than the previous week.<\/p>\n

The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending April 18 fell to 1.79 million, a decrease of 23,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Zoe Lloyd, a 21-year-old student at Northern Arizona University, works from her laptop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,45,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-640851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}