Continuing Unemployment Claims reached a 3.5-year high this week (and the highest since early 2018 outside of the pandemic), exposing cracks in the job market. This means jobs are harder to find, and hiring is slowing, causing people to stay unemployed longer. Notably, weekly unemployment data can be volatile, so it will be important to watch for a longer-term persistence of this troubling trend. If continuing unemployment claims keep rising, it would indicate cooling employment —a serious problem for the economy— and could lead to an increase in the unemployment rate.
