US jobless claims drop to 206,000 as layoffs stay historically low

Summary

U.S. unemployment-insurance claims fell last week to 206,000 for the week ending Feb. 14, the Labor Department reported, pointing to layoffs that remain in a historically low range. The Labor Department said the decrease from the previous week brought the figure below what economists surveyed by FactSet had expected. Weekly jobless claims are closely watched as an up-to-date barometer of changes in the labor market.

In its Thursday report, the Labor Department said the number of Americans filing for jobless aid for the week ending Feb. 14 dropped by 23,000 to 206,000 from the prior week. The Labor Department also reported that the four-week moving average—used to smooth out week-to-week volatility—fell by 1,000 to 219,000.

The Labor Department said that for the previous week ending Feb. 7, total filings for jobless benefits rose to 1.87 million, an increase of 17,000 from the week before. Together, those figures offer a snapshot of ongoing labor-market activity even as other parts of the data cycle continue to shift.

Recent reporting from the Labor Department earlier this month pointed to a surprisingly strong January gain in jobs and a decline in the unemployment rate to 4.3% from 4.4%, but government revisions later reduced earlier estimates of payroll growth. The Labor Department revisions cut 2024-2025 U.S. payrolls by hundreds of thousands, leaving jobs created last year at 181,000—about one-third of the previously reported 584,000 and the weakest since the pandemic year of 2020.

The Labor Department data in the unemployment-insurance stream has shown weekly layoffs mostly in a range of roughly 200,000 to 250,000 for several years. At the same time, high-profile companies have announced job cuts in recent weeks, including UPS, Amazon, Dow and the Washington Post, contributing to concerns that hiring momentum could weaken.

Beyond weekly claims, the Labor Department has also reported that job openings fell in December to the lowest level in more than five years. Over the past year, the broad picture in the data has been of a labor market where hiring has slowed and been affected by uncertainty, including concerns tied to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and the lingering effect of high interest rates set by the Federal Reserve in 2022 and 2023 to address pandemic-era inflation.

Economists, according to the report, are divided over whether the stronger-than-expected January job gains reflect a one-time outcome or the start of a renewed labor-market recovery. Some Fed officials have argued that last year’s weaker hiring reflects borrowing costs weighing on growth and discouraging companies from expanding, while a sustained increase in hiring could challenge that interpretation.

As of this week’s report, the latest jobless-claims reading continues to act as a near real-time signal that layoffs have not accelerated sharply. The Labor Department’s figures also keep the focus on whether the labor market is stabilizing, even as other labor indicators and corporate announcements point to uncertainty about where demand is headed next.