The U.S. Labor Department reported that weekly applications for unemployment benefits declined to 202,000 for the week ending March 28, as layoffs remained relatively limited even amid economic uncertainty tied to the war with Iran. The dip followed a previous week in which the total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose to 1.84 million.
The Labor Department also reported that the four-week moving average of jobless claims, a measure that smooths out week-to-week swings, fell by 3,000 to 207,750. The weekly claims figure is often treated as a near real-time indicator of the pace of layoffs, because it reflects Americans seeking jobless aid.
Recent weeks have included company job cuts even while broader layoffs have stayed sparse, according to Associated Press reporting. The AP story cited cuts reported at Oracle, as well as job-cut announcements discussed for Morgan Stanley, UPS, and Amazon.
Beyond the weekly claims numbers, Associated Press said hiring began slowing about two years ago and tapered further in 2025, attributing that shift to a mix of policy changes and higher borrowing costs used to control inflation. The AP also noted that employers added fewer than 200,000 jobs last year, versus about 1.5 million in 2024, citing FactSet.
The labor market’s unevenness has also shown up in government data revisions and in recent monthly employment figures. Associated Press reported that the Labor Department said employers unexpectedly cut 92,000 jobs in February, and that revisions slashed 69,000 jobs from December and January payrolls, which the AP said nudged the unemployment rate up to 4.4%.
The latest jobless-claims readout arrived as investors and households focused on inflation and the Federal Reserve’s policy outlook. Associated Press said the Commerce Department reported that the Fed’s preferred inflation measure rose 2.8% in January compared with a year earlier, above the Fed’s 2% target, and said the Iran war has pushed up oil prices by more than 40%, raising energy costs for businesses and consumers.
That backdrop has fed expectations that rate cuts may not come soon, the AP reported, after central bank officials voted to raise the rate three times to close 2025. With the March jobs report due out Friday, weekly claims data offered another datapoint for how quickly layoffs may be reappearing as costs rise, even as the jobless-claims range has generally remained between about 200,000 and 250,000 since the economy emerged from the pandemic recession.
As the Labor Department reported, the four-week moving average fell to 207,750, while the unemployment claims total for the prior week ended March 21 increased to 1.84 million, underscoring that the broader picture still hinges on both weekly flows and the size of the insured unemployed population at the margins.