US news: Jobless claims rise, layoffs remain low, economy contracts 0.2%
The US Labor Department said on Thursday applications for jobless benefits rose last week but workers broadly remain secure in their jobs despite economic uncertainty.
Official data showed jobless benefits applications surged by 14,000 to 240,000 in the week ended May 24.
For the week of May 17, the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits rose by 26,000 to 1.92 million.
In April, the US employers added a strong 177,000 jobs and the unemployment rate stood at a healthy 4.2%.
Separately, the government said on Thursday that the US economy contracted 0.2% in the first quarter of 2025, a slight upgrade from its first estimate.
The economic growth was slowed by a rise in imports as companies in the US tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump's massive tariffs went into effect.
Weekly applications for jobless benefits are seen as representative of US layoffs and have mostly settled in a historically healthy range between 200,000 and 250,000 since Covid-19 throttled the economy in the spring of 2020, wiping out millions of jobs.
The latest data reflect that the labor market remains strong, with plentiful jobs and relatively few layoffs.
Concerns over economic uncertainty triggered by President Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs on imports upended a robust US labor market.
However, a sense of relief swept over financial markets on Thursday after a US federal court blocked Trump's most tariffs imposed under an emergency-powers law.
The Trump administration has filed appeal and the Supreme Court will certainly be called upon to decide the issue.
The court order announced on Wednesday threw into doubt Trump's signature economic policy that has rattled global financial markets, frustrated trade partners and raised fears about inflation intensifying and the economy slumping.
Earlier in May, the US Federal Reserve held its lending rate at 4.3% for the third straight time after cutting it three times at the end of 2024.
Jerome Powell, Federal Reserve Chair, had said the potential for both higher unemployment and inflation are elevated, an unusual combination that complicates the central bank's dual mandate of controlling prices and keeping unemployment low.
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Mint
16 minutes ago
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Welspun Group sees strong US business despite US tariffs, expands into water management
On Thursday morning, Welspun Corp stock was up 10% on highest volumes of shares traded on any day in the past twelve months. The stock closed at its 52-week peak of ₹ 895 on the BSE. The company, which makes steel pipes for transporting oil, had just announced its Q4FY25 and FY25 results, reporting a 67% increase in consolidated net profits over the previous financial year despite a 19% fall in annual revenues. The sudden confidence of investors should come as a surprise. There was some serious uncertainty surrounding its business after President Donald Trump imposed a 25% tariff on steel imports into the US in early March. Welspun, which has a pipe making factory in the US, imported steel as raw material, which made the landed cost of the metal highest compared to anywhere else in the world. It looked like Welspun Corp was staring at a prolonged downturn. A month after Trump announced tariffs, the stock was down 15%. B.K. 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