Weekly unemployment insurance claims reached lows not seen since September 1969 falling to 184,000 the week ending December 4th, decreasing 43,000 from the previous week, according to the latest Department of Labor statistics.
Meanwhile the US Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported on October’s jobs market, showing openings up, hires stable and quits down.
Job openings continued to climb in October, reaching 11 million at the end of that month, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, driven primarily by 254,000 new openings in accommodation and food services. In total 431,000 new job openings were created in that month.
Gains in accommodation and food services were followed by 45,000 new openings in nondurable goods manufacturing and 42,000 in educational services.
Meanwhile hires remained practically unchanged a 6.5 billion and quits were down by 205,000, as the great resignation seemed to slowing. The industries with the largest decreases in quits were transportation with 57,000, finance and insurance with 45,000 and arts, entertainment and recreation with 33,000.
The South region led in hires with a 4.8% seasonally adjusted hire rate and the Northeast lagged most with a 3.8% hire rate. The South and Northeast regions also had respectively the highest and lowest seasonally adjusted quit rates at 3.2% and 2.2%.
By Feike de Jong
