Fewer Americans applied for jobless claims last week despite the Federal Reserve’s efforts to tamp down inflation. The Labor Department said that applications for jobless claims for the week ending March 11 fell by 20,000 from the previous week.
in U.S. history over the last week — which have been blamed in large part to rising interest rates — have some economists thinking Fed officials will tread more lightly next week and either raise its rate by 25 basis points or perhaps not at all.
The central bank’s benchmark rate is now in a range of 4.5% to 4.75%, its highest level in 15 years. Before the banking sector turmoil that began last week, the Fed had signaled that two more rate hikes were likely this year. Some analysts had even forecast three increases that could push the lower end of that rate to 5.5%.
The Fed’s rate increases are meant to cool the economy, labor market and wages, thereby suppressing prices. But so far, none of those things have happened, at least not to the degree that the central bank had hoped.Inflation remains more than double the Fed’s 2% target, and the economy is growing and adding jobs at a healthy clip.in February, fewer than January’s huge gain but enough to keep pressure on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates aggressively to fight inflation.
Fed policymakers have forecast that the unemployment rate would rise to 4.6% by the end of this year, a sizable increase historically associated with recessions., where many companies overhired after a pandemic boom. IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Salesforce, Twitter and DoorDash have all announced layoffs in recent months.it was slashing another 10,000 jobs, in addition to the 11,000 culled in November. The social media giant also said it would not fill 5,000 open positions.
The real estate sector has taken the biggest hit from the Fed’s interest rate hikes. Higher mortgage rates — which have risen closer to 7% again in recent weeks — have slowed home sales forAbout 1.68 million people were receiving jobless aid the week that ended March 4, a decrease of 29,000 from the week before. That number is close to pre-pandemic levels.
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