US weekly unemployment claims fall to lowest level since July
Initial US unemployment claims fell to 197,000 last week from a revised 198,000, reaching their lowest level since mid-July. The four-week average also declined. The figures indicate that layoffs remain limited, although hiring has been modest and job creation is below levels recorded in recent years.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell last week to its lowest level since mid-July, indicating that employers continue to keep layoffs low. The US Labor Department said on Thursday that initial claims declined to 197,000 from a revised 198,000 the previous week. The four-week average, which reduces the effect of weekly volatility, fell by 2,500 to 200,000.
Claims are closely watched as an indicator of layoffs and possible changes in the labour market. They have remained below 220,000 for most of this year, a historically low level. Matthew Martin, senior US economist at Oxford Economics, said claims remained unusually low alongside the layoff rate reported in the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey.
He said businesses were not hiring rapidly but remained reluctant to release existing staff. The JOLTS report showed that employers posted fewer job openings in August. Layoffs fell, while the number of workers quitting their jobs declined slightly.
Gross hiring rose modestly but remained low compared with recent years. Employers added an average of 80,000 jobs a month this year, including 162,000 in August. That was an improvement from 2025, when monthly job creation averaged 9,700 amid high interest rates and uncertainty surrounding President Donald Trump’s trade policies.
The Labor Department is due to release the September jobs report next week. A FactSet survey of forecasters expects employers to have added 90,000 jobs and the unemployment rate to have remained at 4.1%. Hiring remains below the average monthly gains recorded in 2023 and 2024, and well below the surge during the 2021-2022 recovery from Covid-19 lockdowns.
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