The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits rose by 5,000 last week to 215,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday, signaling that layoffs remain muted despite growing economic anxiety tied to the Iran war.
The four-week moving average of claims, which strips out week-to-week noise, climbed by roughly 6,300 to 209,000. Both figures sit comfortably inside the low range that has prevailed since the U.S. emerged from the brief but severe pandemic recession in 2020, when claims exploded above 6 million before gradually retreating.
“Initial claims are still impressively low, near historic lows,” Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a commentary. “The uptick from last week to this week is trivial in a labor market of 159 million workers.”
The labor market has been a persistent bright spot in an economy buffeted by the conflict. Weekly jobless claims have held between 200,000 and 250,000 for most of the past two years, and employers continued adding workers through the spring even as consumer sentiment fell to record lows and oil prices spiked. The Labor Department’s next monthly jobs report, due in early June, will offer a fuller picture of whether the war is beginning to cool hiring.
The Iran war has injected new uncertainty into the outlook, pushing energy prices higher and complicating supply chains. But the steady level of claims suggests that businesses, for now, are holding onto their workers rather than resorting to layoffs.