New claims for unemployment benefits fell to 473,000 in the most recent week, sliding from the adjusted 507,000 the week before, the U.S. Labor Department reported.
Fewer people are now jobless than at any time since the economic shutdown was imposed last March, the Wall Street Journal noted.
The four-week moving average of new jobless claims was 534,000, also the lowest in almost 15 months.
About 16.9 million people were collecting unemployment benefits of some kind as of 24 April, roughly three million fewer from the first week in March, but still about eight times more than the average before the 2020 shutdown.
“Employers are clinging to their talent,” Jay Denton, chief analyst at labor research firm ThinkWhy, told the WSJ. “There’s a lot of demand… we will… see more hiring.”
However, many employers have job openings that are going unfilled; the economy added only 266,000 jobs in April.
Factors still hobbling the jobs market include some workers’ fears of catching COVID from customers and coworkers; difficulty arranging child care and the need to be with children who are still home-schooling; and generous unemployment benefits averaging more than $600 a week.
TRENDPOST: As we have detailed, for jobs that pay $15 an hour, with government aid packages, people are getting that amount without having to go to work. These factors have kept the number of people receiving state-level jobless benefits drifting between 3.6 and 4 million since March.
The economic relief program Congress passed in March continued the $300 weekly federal unemployment benefit and a compensation plan for jobless gig workers through September.
Several Republican governors have announced they are ending the $300 weekly federal benefit now in their states to push people back into the workforce.
