US jobless claims rose by the most in 6 weeks, indicating some softening in the still relatively resilient job market.
Labor Department data on Thursday showed that initial jobless claims rose by 13,000 to 242,000 in the week ending April 29. And “Bloomberg” reported that this figure was higher than the average forecast in the survey it conducted for economists, according to what was seen by “Al Arabiya.net”.
Continuing claims, which includes people who have received unemployment benefits for a week or more and is a good indicator of how difficult it will be to find work after losing their job, fell to 1.81 million in the week ending April 22.
Economists are watching the labor data closely, especially after the Federal Reserve decided in its meeting yesterday to raise the interest on federal funds by 0.25%, in light of signs that it may be the last time, if inflation shows some decline and the US labor markets slow down.
The US Federal Reserve is in a position similar to walking on a strip of fire, as it is on the one hand trying to fight flaming inflation, and reduce it to the limits of 2%, while US regional banks are in conflict due to successive increases in interest rates on federal funds, while the United States is less than A month of running out of federal funds if the debt ceiling is not passed through Congress.
