United States: unexpected rise in weekly jobless claims

Weekly jobless claims in the United States rose unexpectedly, following a small drop the week before, signaling that the labor market remains fragile despite the economic recovery well underway but now under threat from the Delta variant.

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Between July 11 and July 18, 419,000 new unemployment benefit claims were registered, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department.

This is 51,000 more than the previous week, for which the data was revised up to 368,000.

Analysts were expecting only 360,000 new requests.

The total number of people still receiving unemployment benefits in one form or another fell sharply in the first week of July: the country had 12.6 million beneficiaries, almost 1.3 million less than over the previous week, according to the most recent data available, also released on Thursday.

Abolition of exceptional unemployment benefits

This sharp drop can be explained in particular by the elimination, by half of the country's states, of exceptional unemployment benefits that had been put in place for the tens of millions of people who had lost their jobs because of the pandemic. This concerns 3.5 million unemployed who have lost or will lose all aid by the end of July, according to calculations by economists at Oxford Economics.

The States which have decided to reduce them without waiting for the end of the program at the beginning of September, or even to end them prematurely, at the end of June, see in fact a brake on the return to employment. They believe that this aid, which is more generous than normal and paid for a longer period, does not encourage the unemployed to return to work, at a time when many employers are struggling to find employees, particularly for the lowest-paid jobs. , especially in catering. However, several court cases have been filed against the rulings, and judges in Maryland and Indiana have ordered those two states to continue paying the benefits.