Data released by the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday (June 12) showed that the number of people who continued to apply for unemployment benefits rose to 1.956,000 in the week ended May 31, up from the 1.92,000 surveyed by Bloomberg.
The surge in the number of continued unemployment benefits is concurrent with a slowdown in recruitment activities, indicating that unemployed people have difficulty finding jobs. However, the latest statistics period covers Memorial Day and school summer vacations in some states, which tend to make the data more volatile.
Another May data released on Thursday showed that U.S. producer price inflation remained moderate across the board, which also showed that tariffs were significantly raised and had not yet led to higher consumer prices and corporate costs. After the data was released, both the U.S. Treasury yield and the U.S. dollar exchange rate fell.The Federal Reserve will hold a meeting next week, and the market is likely to expect the bureau to keep interest rates unchanged to continue to observe how President Trump's tariff policies affect the economy and inflation trends. Employment growth slowed but was still healthy in May, while consumer price data released this week showed the impact of tariffs so far was limited.
Meanwhile, the number of seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims reached 248,000, higher than expected and climbed to its highest level since August 2023.
The number of people applying for unemployment benefits in the United States rose to the highest level since the end of 2021, further showing that it will take longer for unemployed Americans to find new jobs.