Employers are reluctant to lay off and cautiously hire. The number of initial unemployment claims in the United States unexpectedly dropped to a new low since April.

The number of initial jobless claims in the United States unexpectedly dropped to the lowest level since mid-April last week, remaining relatively low amidst continued economic uncertainty. Data released by the US Department of Labor on Wednesday showed that for the week ending November 22, initial jobless claims decreased by 6,000 to 216,000, below the economists' median expectation of 225,000. Meanwhile, continuing jobless claims, a measure of the number of people receiving unemployment benefits, rose slightly to 1.96 million in the previous week. The data released on Wednesday indicated that while employers have slowed down their pace of hiring new employees, they are largely retaining existing staff. Despite increasing announcements of layoffs from large companies including Verizon and Amazon.com, Inc. in recent weeks, there has not been a significant increase in actual layoffs. Since September, continuing jobless claims have been on the rise and are currently approaching levels seen during the labor market recovery after the pandemic. While initial jobless claims remain low, the difficulty for the unemployed in finding new jobs is increasing. Recent surveys have shown that Americans are increasingly concerned about the labor market. The consumer confidence index in November saw the largest decline in seven months, partly due to people's dimmer expectations for job prospects. Similarly, a survey conducted by the Harris Poll in October showed that 55% of employed Americans are worried about losing their jobs, with nearly half of respondents believing that it would take them four months or longer to find a new job of comparable quality if they were to lose their current job. In terms of policy, Federal Reserve officials have implemented rate cuts in their recent policy meetings, focusing on supporting the slowing labor market. However, with the need to find a balance between a weak labor market and high inflation, policymakers are divided on whether to support another rate cut at the Fed's final meeting in December. As a key indicator to smooth out data volatility, the four-week moving average of initial jobless claims dropped to 223,750 last week.