Fewer Americans apply for jobless aid as Omicron wave recedes
Fewer workers filed for jobless aid last week, indicating the Omicron wave that shuttered many businesses is receding.
Some 238,000 people applied for unemployment aid last week, down 23,000 from the prior week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
In total, 1.6 million Americans were collecting jobless aid the week that ended January 22, a slight drop from the previous week.
"We expect continued claims to stay at these levels or decline further as health conditions improve and faster and broader wage growth draws more workers back into the labor market," Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist with Oxford Economics, said in a note to investors.
Jobless claims, which economists follow closely as a proxy for layoffs, have fallen more or less steadily since summer 2020, as the job market has tightened, and hit a 50-year low in November.
However, while the job market has improved since the brief but intense coronavirus recession of 2020, employers likely shed jobs in January as the Omicron wave swept through the U.S., shuttering restaurants and delaying events.
Private payrolls this month dropped by 300,000, payroll processor ADP reported Wednesday. A government report on hiring in January, released on Friday, is widely expected to show job losses of about 250,000.
"[T]he country was at peak Omicron when surveys were taken for January jobs numbers, so we can expect weak employment figures in tomorrow's release, and possibly a net loss in jobs," Robert Frick, corporate economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union, said in a note.
The Associated Press contributed reporting.