US jobless claims rise unexpectedly

The number of Americans who filed new claims for assistanceunemployment rose unexpectedly last week, but remained at levels considered consistent with tightening conditions in the job market.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits rose 23,000 to 248,000 seasonally adjusted for the week ended Feb 12, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters predicted 219,000 claims for the last week.

Claims have been falling since mid-January, when they hit a three-month high, as Covid-19 cases, driven by Omicron variantravaged the country.

You United States are reporting an average of 145,769 new infections per day Covid-19well down from more than 700,000 in mid-January, according to a Reuters analysis of official data.

The country has been facing an acute shortage of workers, with a near-record 10.9 million job openings at the end of December.

This has caused employers to hold back their employees, bringing requests below their pre-pandemic levels. Orders are far from a record peak of 6.149 million, reached in April 2020.

“While some level of instability in the labor market is likely to continue in the near term, we would not be surprised to see applications fall further below pre-pandemic levels in the coming months,” said Veronica Clark, an economist at Citigroup in New York.

The US economy created 467,000 jobs in January. The country’s labor market is tightening, generating strong salary growth, which is contributing to the rise in inflation.

The minutes of the meeting held on January 25 and 26 of the Federal Reservepublished on Wednesday (16), showed that “many” members of the US central bank “saw labor market conditions as already at or very close to those consistent with full employment”.

The Fed is expected to start raising rates in March to contain inflation, with economists predicting as many as seven hikes this year.