US filings for jobless benefits fall to 191,000, lowest since September of 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell to their lowest level in more than three years last week, potentially complicating the Federal Reserve’s upcoming decision on interest rates.

The number of Americans applying for jobless benefits for the week ending Nov. 29 fell to 191,000 from the previous week’s 218,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s the lowest level since September 24, 2022, when claims came in at 189,000. Analysts surveyed by the data provider FactSet had forecast initial claims of 221,000.

Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. The job cuts announced recently by large companies such as UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon typically take weeks or months to fully implement and may not be reflected in Thursday’s data.

The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week volatility, fell by 9,500 to 214,750.

The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Nov. 22 dipped by 4,000 to 1.94 million, the government said.