547,000 Workers Filed For Unemployment In Last Week

The Labor Department released its weekly labor statistics last Thursday. It showed that 547,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits last week (the week ending on April 17th). It has been more than a year since the number of filers has been that low (since before the pandemic was strong). It's still much larger than the number before the pandemic hit though, and still shows that the pandemic must be controlled to return to a fairly normal economy.

Here is the official Labor Department statement:

In the week ending April 17, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 547,000, a decrease of 39,000 from the previous week's revised level. This is the lowest level for initial claims since March 14, 2020 when it was 256,000. The previous week's level was revised up by 10,000 from 576,000 to 586,000. The 4-week moving average was 651,000, a decrease of 27,750 from the previous week's revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since March 14, 2020 when it was 225,500. The previous week's average was revised down by 4,250 from 683,000 to 678,750.