The amount of Americans citizens that are currently filing to receive unemployment benefits has fallen to the lowest level last week. The Labor Department said on Thursday that it was the lowest number since November 1973. This pointed to a quick change in the job market that may cause the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates this December.
Economists had predicted that the first-time applicants for jobless benefits would rise to 257,000 in the latest week. A Labor Department analyst later explained that there were no unique factors that influenced last week's data and that individual states data had not yet been estimated.
The four-week average filing for unemployment benefits rose by 1,500 according to the survey data taken between September and October. This pointed to likely job increase this month which because of the steadily rising rate of inflation are expected to cause the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates during the December policy meeting.
As reported by Fortune, companies that had slowed their hiring from last year are currently adding jobs quickly enough to lower the unemployment rate over time. The economy gained 161,000 jobs in October and the unemployment rate fell to just 4.9 percent!
The economy is showing signs of fast growth after sluggish growth earlier this year. Growth was just 1.1 percent in the first half of 2016, but rose to a 2.9 percent in the July-September quarter.
According to KRQE, home construction soared in October, and these trends should boost growth in the final three months of the year to roughly a 2.5 percent annual pace. Still, growth will likely come in below 2 percent for the full year average.
It is currently more likely that more jobs will be created during the rest of the year. However, we should still wait to see first if the Federal reserve will opt to raise the interest rates, and how that could affect the employment numbers we are seeing today.
