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Investopedia \/ Elizabeth Guevara<\/p>\n
New jobless claims data resumed this week after the shutdown ended. <\/p>\n
Workers filed 232,000 unemployment claims the week ending Oct. 18, the Department of Labor said.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
The number was unusual mainly because we weren’t supposed to see it: the department said the release, the first after the government shutdown ended, was a mistake.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
A week in late October, 232,000 people filed for unemployment, an uptick from 219,000 in late September and a remarkable figure for the simple fact that we know what it is.<\/p>\n
That’s according to the Department of Labor, which released the figure for unemployment claims made the week of Oct. 18 on a website tracking historical data Tuesday. It was the first new data posted about jobless claims since the end of the 43-day government shutdown last week.<\/p>\n
The release took place at an unusual time: usually, the department releases that information on Thursdays. Tuesday’s release was a mistake, the department said, according to Bloomberg.<\/p>\n
The jobless claims figure sheds light on economic trends that were blacked out during the government shutdown last month.<\/p>\n
The number of jobless claims was in line with recent months and didn’t raise any red flags for economists about the health of the labor market.<\/p>\n
Forecasters expect a separate, long-delayed employment report due to be released on Thursday from the Bureau of Labor Statistics to show that the economy added a modest number of jobs<\/a> in September. Job growth has slowed dramatically since the summer due to uncertainty about tariffs and President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, among other factors.<\/p>\n “The overall picture is one of a labor market that is deteriorating but not falling into recession,” \u00a0Dean Baker, senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research think tank, wrote in a commentary.<\/p>\n