On Friday, a whole lot of eyes and ears will be watching and listening to what’s happening in a gorgeous place in the Wyoming mountains: Jackson Hole, where economists and central bank leaders, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, will be meeting and talking.

Their conversations are likely to touch on interest rates, of course, but the title of this year’s symposium is “Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy.” So they’ll be doing a lot of talking about the employment situation.

First-time claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 11,000 last week, more than expected, to hit 235,000, the most since mid-June.

During the week prior, continuing claims — that’s all the laid-off workers who have been collecting unemployment for two weeks or longer — came in just shy of 2 million.

That’s the most since November, 2021.

Unemployment claims give a snapshot of what’s happening in the labor market — in near-real-time. First-time claims reported today were filed just last week. 

When they’re increasing, that says something.

“They’re one of the key signs we have a weakening job market,” said Andrew Stettner at The Century Foundation. “More people staying on unemployment benefits than a year ago. Hiring really slowing down in all sectors except for health care.”

A lot of employers are still loathe to downsize — they remember the labor shortages of the pandemic.

“New layoffs have not been at a recessionary level,” Stettner said. “But because people haven’t been able to get off unemployment, you’re seeing the total numbers really steadily increase.”

But the glass may still be half-full, said Amy Glaser at staffing firm Adecco.

“We don’t want to confuse weakness with moderation,” said Glaser. “We’re seeing a bit of a pause, not a halt, in hiring.”

And we’ve seen declines in both employers’ demand for workers, and in the number of people looking for jobs. 

“So we’ve got the aging (baby) boomers that are retiring every day,” Glaser said. “And then you also see the demand side of the house, where we’ve got tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty.”

That points to a supply-demand imbalance.

“The demand for labor is contracting at a faster pace than the supply of labor,” said George Bory at asset management firm Allspring. “And you may see unemployment now start to move higher.”

Workers on unemployment, plus new entrants to the labor force, chase a shrinking number of jobs. It’s a labor market in transition, possibly something Fed Chair Powell will touch on when he speaks at Jackson Hole.

“The data does show that the labor market is softening, and so from that perspective, there is an argument for the Fed to resume rate cuts,” Bory said.

However? There’s a little thing called “inflation.”

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