First-Time Weekly Jobless Claims up Slightly as Worker Shortage Continues

Estimated new jobless claims were 351,000 for the week ending Sept. 18, an increase of 16,000 over the previous week’s level, revised up by 3,000 to 335,000, according to the Thursday (Sept. 23) unemployment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance were filed by 38 states, totaling 15,162 claims. During the week ending Sept. 4, Extended Benefits were available in Alaska, California, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York and Texas.

The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending Sept. 4 was approximately 11.3 million, down 856,440 from the previous week. There were roughly 26.7 million weekly claims for all programs in the comparable week in 2020.

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During the week ending Sept. 4, continued weekly claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits were filed in 47 states, totaling roughly 4.9 million. Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits were filed in 47 states, totaling about 3.6 million continued claims.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Sept. 11 were Louisiana, the District of Columbia, Arizona, Maryland and Missouri. The largest decreases were in Illinois, California, Ohio, Texas and Virginia.

Economists had forecasted that new jobless claims would decline to 320,000, Yahoo! Finance reported.

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The shortage of workers is continuing, with record job openings at the end of July totaling 10.9 million.

FedEx (FDX) said earlier this week that its first-quarter results took a hit “due to a constrained labor market, which impacted labor availability,” triggering inefficiencies and higher wages.

“What we’re seeing is a labor market that continues to get better, but we’re still dealing with high levels of unemployment,” Gus Faucher, chief economist at Pennsylvania-based PNC Financial Services Group, told The Wall Street Journal.