A hiring sign is displayed at a restaurant in Chicago, Monday, July 1, 2024. On Wednesday, July 3, 2024, the Labor Department reports on the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits inched up last week and remain historically low, however the total number of people collecting jobless benefits continues to grow.
The total number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits rose for the ninth straight week, to 1.86 million, for the week of June 22. That’s the most since November of 2021. The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark borrowing rate 11 times beginning in March of 2022 in an attempt to extinguish the four-decade high inflation that shook the economy after it rebounded from the COVID-19 recession of 2020. The Fed’s intention was to cool off a red-hot labor market and slow wage growth, which can fuel inflation.
“The data bear watching for signals about a more material weakening in the labor market going forward, which will have implications for Fed policy,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.