U.S. job market resilience remains intact, initial jobless claims fall to lowest level since July.

U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Fall to Record Low Notably, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level since July, indicating that layoffs remain rare in a broadly stable labor market. Data released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed that initial jobless claims edged down by 1,000 to 197,000 in the week ended Sept. 19. That is one of the lowest readings since 1969. Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, were little changed at 1.72 million in the week ended Sept. 12, hovering near the lowest level since 2023. Initial claims have been hovering near historic lows for the past few months, with businesses reluctant to let go of workers. Hiring, meanwhile, has been uneven, offering limited opportunities for Americans who feel stuck in their current roles or on the margins of the job market. The four-week moving average of new claimsa metric that helps smooth out volatilityfell to 202,250, a six-week low. Before seasonal adjustment, initial claims rose, driven mainly by increases in California, Hawaii and New York. "This is still an unusually low level of initial claims in mid-September, pointing to stable labor market conditions," said economist Eliza Winger. "The few industries that are cutting jobs appear focused on efficiency gains, and we haven't yet seen signs that higher interest rates are driving layoffs, even in the most rate-sensitive sectors of the economy."