It's Jobless Thursday

Initial unemployment claims were basically flat, falling from 269,000 to 268,000.

Of course, we are still down millions of jobs:

U.S. jobless claims are gradually drifting down toward pre-pandemic levels as employers avoid layoffs and many workers quit or remain sidelined in a tight labor market.

Initial claims for jobless benefits edged down to seasonally adjusted 268,000 last week from a revised 269,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department said Thursday. Claims are at the lowest level since the pandemic hit the U.S. economy last spring.

Though worker filings for unemployment benefits remain above their 2019 weekly average of 218,000, the decline in claims has been much faster than after the 2007-2009 recession. Claims, a proxy for layoffs, took about 1.5 years to fall below 300,000 after the economy began to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. By comparison, they took roughly five years to cross that threshold after the recession ended in mid-2009.

That's because this time around, money went to people rather than banks.

Continuing claims, which provide an approximation for the number of people receiving regular state benefits, fell to a pandemic low of 2.08 million in the week ended Nov. 6 from 2.21 million a week earlier.

Much of the fall in continuing claims is a result of the unwinding of enhanced and extended unemployment benefits in September.

So far, we are not seeing any contractionary effects from the end of these benefits.