DOL Reports A Troubling Amount Of Unemployment Cases

The number of Americans filing new unemployment claims rose sharply to 286,000 in the week ending Jan. 15, as the labor market continues to recover from surging COVID-19 cases.

The Labor Department figure shows a 55,000 jump in claims over the week ending Jan. 8 when claims increased to 231,000. According to Market Watch, economists had expected claims to decrease to 225,000.

COVID-19 cases have continued to surge across the country causing weaker growth forecasts, and some experts think the Omicron coronavirus variant will further disrupt the demand for workers.

“Someone who’s dependable, who’s been on the job for a year and doesn’t need to learn the ropes—you don’t want to lay that person off when you’re expecting a spring thaw” in economic activity, Automatic Data Processing (ADP) economist Nela Richardson said.

The U.S. economy added only 199,000 in December 2021, but unemployment fell to 3.9% from November’s 4.2% figure. Meanwhile, roughly 6.5 million Americans were still unemployed at the end of 2021 as the economy was still 3.5 million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels.