U.S. weekly jobless claims fall amid tight labor market

WASHINGTON, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Initial jobless claims in the United States last week fell to 200,000 amid a tight labor market, the U.S. Labor Department reported on Thursday.

In the week ending May 28, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits decreased by 11,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of 211,000, according to a report released by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Jobless claims, which have seen ups and downs in recent weeks, remain historically low, with the latest figure matching the pre-pandemic level. In the week ending March 14, 2020, jobless claims totaled 221,000, but in the following week, the figure skyrocketed to 2.9 million.

The four-week moving average for initial jobless claims, a method to iron out data volatility, decreased by 500 to 206,500, the BLS report showed.

The latest report also showed that the number of people continuing to collect regular state unemployment benefits, which was reported with a one-week lag, declined by 34,000 to 1.3 million during the week ending May 21. That number peaked in April and May in 2020, when it was over 20 million.

The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs - state and federal combined - for the week ending May 14, however, increased by 2,113 to 1.319 million.

Companies were struggling to hire as labor market supply could not meet demand. The number of job openings decreased by 455,000 to 11.4 million by end of April, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

The monthly employment report, however, showed that the number of unemployed persons dropped slightly from 6 million in March to 5.9 million in April, indicating there were 1.9 job positions for every unemployed.