The workforce and number of people reporting jobs fell, and the number of unemployed people was flat at 76,000.
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New York Fed President William Dudley, an influential policymaker at the US central bank, said on Tuesday it was “possible” to hike rates at the Fed’s September 20-21 policy meeting.
The state said Wednesday it’s the lowest rate since January 2001’s 4.4 percent, but officials say it corresponds with a significant drop in labor force and employment levels. It was the 76th consecutive week that claims remained below 300,000, the longest such streak since 1970-when the US workforce and population were far smaller.
The average of new jobless claims over the past month rose by 2,500 to 265,250, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The Georgia Department of Labor on Thursday announced the July unemployment rate of 5 percent, saying it’s down from 5.1 percent the previous month and 5.7 percent in July 2015.
Continuing jobless claims rose 15,000 to 2.18 million in the week ended August 6, the government said. That is the longest such stretch since 1973, when the labor market was much smaller.
Mississippi’s unemployment rate rose to 6 percent from 5.9 percent in June. Most of the job gains in the state came in professional and business services, 32,200; trade, transportation and warehousing, 24,800; leisure and hospitality, 19,800; education and health services, 15,800; construction, 12,400; manufacturing 8,600; government, 4,700; and financial activities, 4,500.
This year, Michigan’s unemployment rate has continued to move incrementally downward in 2016, sustaining a mostly descending trend recorded since July 2009.
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July’s job growth was “impressive, and gains were broad-based across industries”, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said Tuesday. Continuing claims are reported with a one-week lag.
