Jobless claims unchanged at 205,000 as unemployment recovery looks stable

• Jobless claims were unchanged at 205,000 last week.
• The sum landed exactly at the median economist forecast of 205,000 claims.

Filings for unemployment benefits were unchanged last week, signaling a steadiness as the unemployment picture increasingly resembles a full recovery.

Jobless claims were unchanged at 205,000 last week, the Labor Department announced Thursday. That landed exactly at the median forecast of 205,000 claims from economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

The previous week's sum was revised to 205,000 from 206,000. That was a jump from the 188,000 figure weeks earlier, which was the lowest count since 1969.

Claims have fluctuated around 200,000 in the last few weeks, the same threshold that filings averaged before the pandemic. Though the labor market hasn't entirely healed yet, the steady decline is an encouraging sign that fewer people are being laid off.

Continuing claims, which count Americans receiving ongoing unemployment insurance, slid to 1.86 million for the week that ended December 11, a decrease from the revised level for the previous week, of 1.87 million. The median forecast was for a decline to 1.84 million. Thursday's reading is the lowest since March 14, when it was 1.77 million, according to the BLS.

The figures mark a moment of stability in unemployment claims after two separate 50-year lows in November, but the sudden holiday-season surge of the Omicron variant remains a large question mark about the future of the economy and joblessness across the country.

"With so much uncertainty now and the high level of concern about the Omicron variant, we'll take stability when we can get it," Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate.com, said about the stability in jobless claims. "Fortunately, there's no evidence in this data of a new wave of fresh job loss. New claims are only slightly above the lowest point in decades notched a couple of weeks ago."

"The pandemic's resurgence is affecting the economy," Hamrick added. "The question is for how long and how much, and it too early to know the answers."