Weekly unemployment claims down by 16,000, the fewest since September 2022

Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Initial U.S. unemployment claims for the week ending Jan. 13 dropped by 16,000, the lowest since September 2022, according to a Thursday Department of Labor report.

There were 187,000 initial jobless claims, seasonally adjusted.

For the same week a year ago, there were 200,000 claims.

"This is the lowest level for initial claims since September 24, 2022, when it was 182,000," the DOL said in a statement. "The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 202,000 to 203,000. The 4-week moving average was 203,250, a decrease of 4,750 from the previous week's revised average."

The strong labor market was a sign of persistent resilience even in the face of Federal Reserve efforts to cool off both the jobs market and the economy in order to fight inflation.

The Fed interest rate increases target a supply-demand mismatch between workers in the national labor market and companies as one critical element that has driven inflation higher.

On Jan. 11 the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the annual inflation rate measured by the Consumer Price Index stood at 3.4%.

That's much lower than the CPI inflation peak of 9.1% in June of 2022, but still higher than the Fed's 2% target.

The DOL said Thursday that continuing unemployment claims, seasonally adjusted, totaled 1.806 million for the week ending Jan. 6, a decrease of 26,000 from the week ending Dec. 30.

The biggest increases in initial jobless claims were in New York, California, Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina.

The largest decreases were in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa and Pennsylvania.

The U.S. January 2024 unemployment rate is 3.7%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.