Americans filing for unemployment benefits edged higher last week, according to Labor Department figures, even as layoffs stayed historically low and the broader labor market showed early signs of cooling. For the week ending Jan. 17, jobless-claims applications rose to 200,000 from 199,000 the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The level remained below what some analysts had expected, and it continued a pattern in which the job market appears to be weakening more in hiring than in large-scale layoffs.

The Labor Department also reported a decline in the four-week average of jobless claims, which is used to smooth week-to-week volatility. That four-week average fell by 3,750 to 201,500, while the total number of people filing for benefits for the prior week ending Jan. 10 decreased by 26,000 to 1.85 million.

On the unemployment rate, the Labor Department said the rate slipped to 4.4% in December, its first decline since June. The department said the unemployment rate had previously been 4.5% in November, a figure that was revised lower. That shift comes alongside the report that employers added 50,000 jobs last month, following a nearly unchanged figure compared with November, which the Labor Department revised downward to 56,000.

Recent government data also pointed to weaker hiring momentum. The Labor Department reported that businesses posted far fewer jobs in November than the month before, with 7.1 million open jobs at the end of November compared with 7.4 million in October. Economists described the pattern as “low hire, low fire,” suggesting companies have been retaining workers while hesitating to add staff even as growth has picked up.

Economists and markets have tied the slowdown in hiring to uncertainty and tightening conditions. Recent government data has shown a labor market where hiring has lost momentum amid uncertainty raised by President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effects of high interest rates the Federal Reserve engineered in 2022 and 2023 to rein in pandemic-era inflation.

The Federal Reserve has been moving toward easing while still assessing labor-market strength. The Fed trimmed its benchmark lending rate by a quarter-point last month, its third straight cut, and Fed officials are scheduled to meet again next week with most analysts and traders expecting no change at that meeting. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said committee members are increasingly concerned that the job market is weaker than it appears, and he suggested job figures could be revised lower by as much as 60,000—meaning employers could have been shedding jobs at an average of about 25,000 per month since the spring, when the Trump administration rolled out sweeping import taxes.

Even with layoffs described as historically low, the report noted that some companies have announced job cuts, including UPS, General Motors, Amazon and Verizon. Separately, the Labor Department also said that businesses posted fewer open jobs in November and that layoffs had dropped, reinforcing the signal that employers are not rapidly expanding headcount.

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