Americans filed the fewest new jobless claims in a month last week, and while the number of unemployed workers collecting relief payments has eased from recent highs, there is little indication of a break from the weak hiring environment that settled in over the course of President Donald Trump‘s first year back at the White House.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits for the week ended December 27 dropped unexpectedly by 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 199,000, the lowest since the end of November, Labor Department data showed on Wednesday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims would rise to 220,000. The report was published a day early because of the New Year’s Day holiday.
Claims have been volatile in recent weeks amid challenges in adjusting the data for seasonal fluctuations ahead of the holiday season. The labor market remains locked in what economists and policymakers describe as a “no hire, no fire” mode, and the final report of 2025 was largely emblematic of that.
Though the economy remains resilient, with gross domestic product increasing at its fastest pace in two years in the third quarter, the labor market has almost stalled. Labor demand and supply have been impacted by Trump’s dramatic policy shifts since he began his second presidency in January, most notably his steep import tariffs and his aggressive immigration crackdown that has limited worker supply, economists say.
The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after an initial week of aid, a proxy for hiring, fell by 47,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.866 million during the week ending December 20, the claims report showed.
“The drop in initial unemployment claims to 199,000 in the week of Christmas was likely another seasonal-adjustment distortion,” John Ryding, chief economic adviser at Brean Capital, said.
“Bigger picture, we have not seen a meaningful increase in layoffs as signaled by these data in 2025 with the average level of claims in the year at 226,100 compared to 223,000 in 2024.”
Continuing claims have eased from recent highs
Continuing claims had neared the 2 million mark in late October but have eased off some as the year wound down and a record-long federal government shutdown ended in mid-November.
While off that recent peak, continuing claims are somewhat higher than they were at this time last year, and at a level that aligns with a survey from the Conference Board last week showing consumers’ perceptions of the labor market deteriorated this month to levels last seen in early 2021.
Hiring has slowed substantially in 2025, averaging just 55,000 new jobs created a month through November, roughly a third of the pace in 2024, and the breadth of hiring has narrowed as employers awaited greater clarity on Trump’s policies and as they gauge their workforce needs against the rapid rollout of productivity-enhancing artificial intelligence tools.
The slow hiring pace has brought job creation to near what economists estimate is the break-even rate that keeps the jobless rate from rising. The unemployment rate increased to a four-year high of 4.6% in November, though part of the rise was because of technical factors related to the 43-day government shutdown.
A jobless rate tracker from the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago suggests it remained unchanged in December at 4.6%. The Labor Department, which was unable to produce a jobless rate for October because of the shutdown, will publish employment figures for December on January 9.
Still, the number of Americans on jobless benefits rolls as a share of the U.S. labor force is just 1.1% and has changed little over the course of this year even as the formal unemployment rate has climbed from 3.7% in January to November’s 4.6%. The lack of correlation in movement between the two data points is very unusual, and stands as further evidence for some economists of the reluctance among employers to cut headcount in an environment of still-tight labor supply.
What does it mean for the Fed?
The unusual attributes of the current job market are central to the debate underway at the Federal Reserve about whether to cut interest rates further to forestall further weakening of employment or to hold borrowing costs steady to keep pressure on inflation that remains above the Fed’s 2% target.
The U.S. central bank this month cut its benchmark overnight interest rate by another 25 basis points to the 3.50% to 3.75% range, but signaled rates were unlikely to fall in the near term as policymakers await clarity on the direction of the labor market and inflation, which has drifted upward over the year thanks to pressure on goods prices from Trump’s tariffs.
Minutes of the December 9-10 meeting released on Tuesday showed the depth of the divide among policymakers. Even some of those who supported the rate cut acknowledged “the decision was finely balanced or that they could have supported keeping the target range unchanged,” given the different risks facing the U.S. economy.
For Fed officials, much hinges on what a blitz of data coming in the early weeks of 2026 reveals about the economy’s direction.
Some of those policymakers who were either opposed or skeptical of the most recent cut “suggested that the arrival of a considerable amount of labor market and inflation data over the coming intermeeting period would be helpful on making judgments about whether a rate reduction was warranted,” the meeting minutes said.
—Dan Burns, Reuters