Weekly Jobless Claims Increase for Second Consecutive Week During the Week Ending January 15, 2022

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 286,000 Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday, January 15, 2022. This is an increase of 55,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level. The 4-week moving average was 231,000 — an increase of 20,000 from the previous week’s revised average.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment (known as continuing claims) during the week ending January 8, 2022 was 1,635,000 — an increase of 84,000 from the previous week’s revised level. The 4-week moving average was 1,664,250 — a decrease of 55,2500 from the previous week’s revised average. This is the lowest level for this average since April 27, 2019, when it was 1,663,500.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2% for the week ending January 8, 2022, an increase of 0.1 percentage points from the previous week’s unrevised rate.