According to Bloomberg News, the applications for the unemployment benefits of the US states dropped last week, which is the lowest since 1969, indicating that there exist difficulties in the adjustment in the raw data for the seasonal effects.
The figure recorded was at 184,000 in the current week that ended December 4th, for the initial unemployment claims, a figure that was recorded to be 43,000 less as compared to the earlier period, as per data from the Labor Department Thursday. In a Bloomberg survey of economists, the median estimate was found to be for around 220,000 applications.
This decline has caused the level of applications to drop below the earlier two weeks, which the economists are attributing to hiccups in adjusting to the seasonal swings that take place around the holiday times. The initial claims on an unadjusted basis increased by 64,000.
The request for aid for the unemployed was trending downward since the beginning of the year as Americans started returning to work and the employers are more focused on the retention of the workforce so that the demand for staff can be fulfilled.
Escalation in prices and the wrath of coronavirus has continued to make the pace of business activities and recruitment much complicated. Last month, the job growth rate recorded was the smallest gain in the current year as labor shortage persists on a wide scale, reports Bloomberg News.
The initial applications as witnessed on the four-week moving average that smoothens out the larger oscillations in data declined to 218,750. This is the lowest since March of the previous year.
Bloomberg News reports that for the state benefits, the continuous claims escalated to 1.00 million in the week that ended on November 27th, which was up by 38,000 from the earlier period.
California, New York, and Texas reported the largest in unadjusted claims last week with several other states following suit.
