Jobless claims ticked up last week, signaling that employers are largely holding on to workers even as the economy shows signs of slowing.
For the week ending Aug. 30, applications for unemployment benefits rose by 8,000 to 237,000, the Labor Department said Thursday — slightly above the 231,000 economists had forecast.
Weekly jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, have mostly held in a historically healthy range of 200,000 to 250,000 since the U.S. began emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic nearly four years ago.
Layoffs remain low, but hiring has slowed in what some economists call a “no hire, no fire” economy. The unemployment rate stands at a historically low 4.2%.
On Wednesday, the government said U.S. employers posted 7.2 million job openings at the end of July — fewer than expected and another sign of labor market weakness.
That report followed July’s bleak jobs data, which showed just 73,000 positions added and steep downward revisions for June and May, sending financial markets tumbling.
