U.S. Jobless Claims Rose Last Week

By Matt Grossman

More Americans filed for initial jobless benefits last week, according to the Department of Labor.

The week through Jan 18. brought 223,000 initial jobless claims, compared with 217,000 a week earlier. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had been forecasting 221,000 initial claims.

The number of continued claims, a gauge of the size of the unemployed population, hit its highest level since November 2021. Continued claims rose to 1.9 million in the week through Jan. 11, compared with 1.85 million the week before. The continued-claims data lag the new-claims by a week.

Economists have been watching initial claims filings for a sign that companies have turned to layoffs to keep payroll costs down.

Although the labor market has weakened since unemployment bottomed out at 3.4% in early 2023, that hasn't yet meant the kind of widespread job cuts that can quickly spiral into an economy-wide recession.

Initial claims have now climbed for two weeks in a row, and the trend has gradually moved higher from this time a year ago. But initial claims have still been coming in below levels of between 230,000 and 250,000 often recorded over summer 2024 in the weekly data series.

Write to Matt Grossman at matt.grossman@wsj.com.