OKLAHOMA CITY – New claims for unemployment benefits for the filing week that ended Aug. 20 fell 29.5% from the previous week, the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission reported.
Initial claims that week totaled 2,802, a decrease of 1,174 from the previous week’s level of 3,976. For the same file week, the less volatile four-week moving average of initial claims was 3,203, a modest increase of 80 from the previous week’s average.
Before the arrival of COVID-19 in mid-March 2020 and the collapse in the energy industry, triggering massive job losses, no more than 2,000 first-time jobless claims were filed weekly in Oklahoma, ledgers reflect.
“Fluctuations in our state’s unemployment trends are expected as we continue to see week-to-week volatility in claims data,” OESC Executive Director Shelley Zumwalt said.
Nationally, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for the week ending Aug. 27 was 232,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week’s revised level, the U.S. Department of Labor reported. The four-week moving average was 241,500, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week’s revised average.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate nationally in August rose to 3.7% – from a 50-year low of 3.5% in July – as more people gave up the couch and went looking for jobs. In August, 786,000 people entered or reentered the labor market or were actively seeking a job. Thus, the increase in unemployment nationally indicates stronger economic activity rather than job losses.
The labor market has remained robust even as other parts of the economy, such as the housing market, have weakened.
The U.S. labor market added 1.1 million jobs since May, the Labor Department reported. That included 526,000 jobs in July and another 315,000 jobs in August despite rising interest rates, inflation and sluggish consumer spending.
The biggest job gains were in professional and business services, computer systems design, management and technical consulting, and architectural and engineering services.
Although hiring slowed in August, it still marked 20 consecutive months of sustained job growth. The August data “pointed to a resilient labor market and an economy that is not near recession,” the Associated Press reported.
Among the prime-age worker demographic – those aged 25 to 54 – the percentage of Americans who are employed has returned to its pre-pandemic level: 80.3% in August compared to 80.5% in February 2020.
Because of the coronavirus pandemic there has been lingering concern that many Americans would never return to work or even try to get a job. Yet total employment is now reported at 152.7 million, compared to the pre-pandemic peak of 152.5 million.
In other words, the economy has recovered all of the millions of jobs that were lost to the pandemic.