By Dan Burns
(Reuters) -The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits ticked up to the highest level in a month last week, suggesting the labor market was largely stable even though job creation is weakening and it is taking laid-off workers longer to find new jobs.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits for the week ended August 2 rose 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 226,000, the highest level since the week ended July 5, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 221,000 claims for the latest week.
The labor market has slowed, with government data last week showing far fewer jobs were created in July than economists had expected as uncertainty over President Donald Trump’s tariffs left businesses wary of adding workers. Moreover, employment gains in the previous two months were revised lower by nearly 260,000, a stunning reversal that prompted Trump to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics – a move that rattled investors and economists already anxious about the eroding quality of official U.S. economic data.
The latest data on new claims indicates employers are not yet turning to large-scale layoffs as the economy loses steam but are managing through attrition. That has helped keep the unemployment rate, at 4.2% in July, relatively low even while job growth has slowed. Declining labor supply amid the White House’s immigration crackdown is also helping to stave off a jump in the jobless rate.
Employers’ hesitancy to increase hiring means there are fewer jobs for those being laid off. The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, rose to a seasonally adjusted 1.974 million during the week ending July 26, the claims report showed. That was the highest level of so-called continued claims since November 2021, and the the increase of 38,000 from the previous week was the largest since late May.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department also said worker productivity rebounded more than expected in the second quarter, easing a surge in labor costs at the start of the year.
Nonfarm business sector productivity increased 2.4% in the April-June period after declining by 1.8% in the first three months of the year, the BLS reported. Economists polled by Reuters had expected productivity to rise by 2.0%.
Worker output increased by 3.7%, the largest improvement since the third quarter of 2023, while unit labor cost growth moderated to 1.6% from an upwardly revised 6.9% in the first quarter.
(Reporting by Dan Burns; Editing by Paul Simao)
