US unemployment claims fall for the third consecutive week

Washington on September 2 : Initial claims for unemployment in the US last week fell to 232,000, settling at the lowest level in two months amid continuing job market tensions The Labour Department reported.

The latest figures are less than the median figure in an Bloomberg survey of economists that called for 248,000 applications to be submitted, according to Xinhua news agency.The four-week moving average of initial unemployment claims, which is a method to smooth out the volatility of data also fell by 4,000, to 241,500, the BLS report revealed.

The most recent figure of 232,000 is significantly higher than the average weekly figure for 2019 of 218,000 that is pre-pandemic threshold.In the week that ended on March 21, 2020 unemployment claims soared to 2.9 million.Employment claims totaled 166,000 in the week that ended March 19 the lowest in many decades.

Recent months have seen the numbers have been trending upwards in the face of rising inflation and increasing interest rates.The most recent figures however, revealed that unemployment insurance applications decreased for the third week in a row which indicates that there is still a strong demand for work even as the economy slows.