The number of initial unemployment claims in the United States remained steady last week, demonstrating the resilience of the labor market.

The data released on Thursday showed that the number of initial jobless claims in the United States for the week ending January 24 was 209,000, slightly higher than the market expectation of 205,000 and slightly lower than the revised previous value of 210,000. The number of continuing jobless claims in the week ending January 17 was 1.827 million, lower than the market expectation of 1.86 million and the revised previous value of 1.865 million. The four-week moving average of initial jobless claims for the week ending January 24 was 206,250, with the previous value revised from 201,500 to 204,000. The initial jobless claims in the United States have been stable in the range of 200,000 to 210,000 in the past few weeks, indicating that the labor market is trending towards stability, maintaining the "low hiring, low firing" steady state described by economists and policymakers. This data also echoes the remarks made by the Federal Reserve Chairman at a press conference after the interest rate decision announcement on Wednesday. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) maintained the interest rate unchanged as scheduled on Wednesday. Powell said at the press conference that there were signs of stabilization in the U.S. unemployment rate, and the labor market may be stabilizing gradually after softening, with little change in recruitment, job vacancies and wage growth. Investors will closely monitor the U.S. non-farm payrolls report for January, which is scheduled to be released next Friday, to further assess the state of the labor market. The market currently expects that the number of non-farm job additions in January will increase from 50,000 in December to 70,000, and the unemployment rate will remain at 4.4%. However, despite reports that negotiations between senior Senate Democrats and the Trump administration to avoid another government shutdown are closer to the Democrats' demands, no agreement has been reached yet. The temporary funding bill expires at the end of the month, and the U.S. Congress must pass a new funding bill by the end of the month, otherwise many federal government agencies, including the Department of Labor that collects employment data, will "shut down" again. Therefore, some analysts suggest that if the federal government shuts down again starting this Saturday, it may delay the release of the highly anticipated U.S. non-farm payrolls report next week.