WASHINGTON -- The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits jumped last week but remains in the same historically low range of the past few years.Applications for jobless aid for the week ending Jan.31 rose by 22,000 to 231,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
That’s significantly more than the 211,000 new applications that analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet had forecast.Applications for unemployment benefits are seen as representative of U.S.layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.A number of high-profile companies have announced job cuts in the past year, including UPS, Amazon and Dow just last week.
On Wednesday, the Washington Post laid off one-third of its staff, eliminating its sports section, several foreign bureaus and its books coverage in a widespread purge at the storied newspaper owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.A private company, the Post did not disclose how many people it has on staff, making it impossible to estimate how many people were laid off.
Mounting layoff announcements in the past year, combined with the government’s own sluggish labor market reports, has left Americans increasingly pessimistic about the economy.Last month, the government reported that hiring remained subdued in December, capping a year of weak employment gains that have frustrated job seekers even though layoffs and unemployment remained historically low.Employers added just 50,000 jobs last month, nearly unchanged from a downwardly revised figure of 56,000 in November, according to the Labor Department.
The unemployment rate slipped to 4.4%, its first decline since June.January’s jobs report, which was scheduled for release Friday, has been delayed due to the partial government shutdown earlier this week.The U.S.
economy gained just 584,000 jobs in 2025, an average of around 50,000 per month.That’s sharply lower than that more than 2 million added in 2024, ...