U.S. Labour Department to Release Weekly Jobless Claims Report Today

The U.S. Labour Department is set to publish its weekly jobless claims report at 8:30 am ET on Thursday. This comes as an additional 220,000 Americans filed to receive unemployment benefits.

According to Yahoo Finance, this will also mark the seventh successive week of the country posting jobless claims below the 250,000th mark, as it lingers close to levels before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Coupled with monthly labour data and other employment surveys, the weekly jobs reports of the labour economy are gradually inching towards pre-pandemic levels.

However, soaring inflation poses a fresh set of problems for the economy with the U.S. Federal Reserve adopting its most aggressive stance in decades, as it is set to implement six interest rate hikes in addition to the quarter-point increase on Wednesday — the first since 2018.

Bankrate’s Senior Economic Analyst Mark Hamrick contended, "Staggeringly high inflation is set to go higher in forthcoming reports because of impacts from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and continuing supply chain disruptions including in China." He added, "These higher costs crimping household budgets risk dampening consumer discretionary purchases. It remains to be seen how much this could negatively affect the job market in the months to come."

Regardless, the labour market remains sturdy with Fed policymakers citing the same as the economy’s ability to withstand additional rate hikes in 2022.