Jobless claims tick up to 207K for final week of 2021

New claims for jobless aid ticked higher in the final week of 2021, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department.

In the week ending Dec. 31, seasonally adjusted new applications for unemployment insurance totaled 207,000, rising by 7,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 200,000 claims.

Jobless claims lingered close to 200,000 per week through the final two months of 2021, almost 20,000 applications below pre-pandemic levels, despite the emergence of the omicron variant shortly after Thanksgiving.

While some industries hit hard by new cases have struggled amid omicron, the overall economy has held strong and companies have been reluctant to lay off workers with more than 10 million open jobs yet to be filled.

“Weekly unemployment claims only ticked up for the latest week, showing the surge in Omicron cases hasn’t increased layoffs. Given the surge is expected to drop significantly in the next month, and employers are clinging to the workers they have in the face of a record number of employees quitting, Omicron may not affect layoffs at all,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, in a statement.

Demand for workers reached record levels toward the end of last year as businesses struggled to keep up with surging consumer spending and supply chain snarls. Though an omicron-driven increase in layoffs could still be in the cards, the lack of a surge in claims amid a staggering rise in cases has been a relief for those concerned about a deeper slowdown.

The new claims data was released a day before the Labor Department is scheduled to publish the December jobs report — a more thorough look into omicron’s early impact on the job market. Economists expect the U.S. to have added more than 420,000 jobs last month, though some analysts have boosted their projections after a strong private payrolls employment report and other encouraging private sector data.

U.S. businesses added 807,000 jobs in December despite the emergence of the omicron variant, according to data released Wednesday by payroll processor ADP, almost twice what economists had expected. The federal jobs report, which often diverges from the ADP report, also includes public sector employment.

Updated at 9:11 a.m.