The number of Americans registering for unemployment benefits increased to its highest level in three months last week, an indication that the continuous wave of COVID-19 infections caused by the Omicron variant is beginning to affect the job market.
A total of 286,000 people applied for first-time unemployment benefits in the week ending January 15 — an increase of 55,000 from the previous week, according to data released Thursday by the United States Labor Department. This is the biggest number of claims received since the middle of October.
The increase in coronavirus cases, according to economists, was a contributing factor to the increase.
‘The increase in claims reflects both an increase in layoffs as a result of the surge in Covid cases and an additional boost from strong seasonal adjustment effects,’ according to Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist for the United States at Oxford Economics, in recent research.
The latest COVID-19 outbreak has put a damper on the strong recovery from the coronavirus recession that began in 2020. Jobless claims, which serve as a proxy for layoffs, had been slowly declining for nearly a year and had gone below the pre-pandemic norm of roughly 220,000 claims per week by late 2021.
According to the Census Bureau, approximately 9 million people reported that they were unable to work because they had COVID-19 or were caring for someone who had tested positive during the first week of January, and that number is certain to rise.
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That’s more than triple the number from the middle of December.
Overall, the employment market remains tight as workers are kept out of the labor field by illness and caregiving responsibilities, placing pressure on firms. Companies advertised 10.6 million job openings in November, the fifth-highest monthly number in the company’s history dating back to the year 2000.
In November, a record 4.5 million people departed their employment, demonstrating that they are confident enough to pursue a better opportunity elsewhere.
The jobless rate fell to a historic low of 3.9 percent last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
