US applications for jobless benefits fell last week and remain in historically healthy range

The number of Americans filing for jobless benefits fell modestly last week, remaining in the historically low range since the U.S. economy emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Applications for unemployment benefits for the week ending Aug. 9 fell by 3,000 to 224,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That's below the 230,000 new applications that economists had forecast. Weekly applications for jobless benefits are seen as a proxy for U.S. layoffs and have mostly settled in a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since COVID-19 throttled the economy in the spring of 2020. Two weeks ago, a grim July jobs report sent financial markets spiraling, spurring President Donald Trump to fire Erika McEntarfer, the head of Bureau of Labor Statistics, which tallies the monthly employment numbers. The BLS does not contribute to the weekly unemployment benefits report except to calculate the annual seasonal adjustments. U.S. employers added just 73,000 jobs in July, well short of the 115,000 analysts forecast. Worse, revisions to the May and June figures shaved 258,000 jobs off previous estimates and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%. Without citing evidence, Trump accused McEntarfer of rigging the jobs data for political reasons. On Monday, Trump nominated E.J. Antoni, chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, to head the BLS. While layoffs remain low by historical standards, there has been noticeable deterioration in the labor market this year and mounting evidence that people are having difficulty finding jobs. U.S. employers posted 7.4 million job vacancies in June, down from 7.7 million in May. The number of people quitting their jobs — a sign of confidence in finding a better job — fell in June to the lowest level since December. Some major companies have announced job cuts this year, including Procter & Gamble, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft, Google and Facebook parent company Meta. Intel and The Walt Disney Co. also recently announced staff reductions. Many economists contend that Trump's erratic rollout of tariffs against U.S. trading partners has created uncertainty for employers, who have grown reluctant to expand their payrolls. The deadline on most of Trump's proposed taxes on imports kicked in last week, though some deals have been made and other deadlines for negotiations — most importantly with China — have been extended. Unless Trump reaches deals with countries to lower the tariffs, economists fear they could act as a drag on the economy and spark another rise in inflation. Also Thursday, new government data showed that U.S. wholesale inflation surged unexpectedly last month, a sign that Trump's sweeping taxes on imports are pushing costs higher. Thursday's jobless benefits report showed that the four-week average of claims, which smooths out some of the week-to-week volatility, ticked up by 750 to 221,750. The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for the previous week of Aug. 2 fell by 15,000 to 1.95 million.