New unemployment claims in the United States ticked down last week, reinforcing the image of a labour market that remains broadly stable despite slowing hiring. But beneath the surface, regional stress and political disruptions are starting to show, with rising claims in the Washington D.C. area and continued fallout from sweeping federal workforce cuts.
Labour Market Holds Steady Despite Slower Hiring
New unemployment claims in the US dipped slightly last week, offering little to shake the broader narrative of a labour market still trudging along with quiet resilience. According to the Labour Department, initial applications for state unemployment benefits slipped by 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 224,000 in the week ending 22 March.
In short: no alarms, no surprises. The jobless rate, at least for March, appears to have held steady.
Data Revisions Quietly Reshape the Picture
As is customary, the government has revised unemployment claims data from 2020 to 2024, part of its annual effort to align the figures with evolving seasonal patterns. For 2025, a new set of seasonal adjustment factors has been introduced: a refreshed statistical lens to strip out short-term noise and reveal the underlying pace of the labour market.
These revisions rarely grab headlines. But they quietly shape how the data is read, and what policymakers, markets, and analysts make of it.
Washington Region Feels the Strain of Government Cuts
The labour market has managed to stay on its feet, thanks largely to historically low levels of layoffs, which have cushioned the blow from a notable slowdown in hiring. It’s been enough, so far, to keep the broader economic expansion on course.
But not all the signals are reassuring. President Donald Trump’s sweeping trade agenda and his drive to shrink the size of government through spending cuts and high-profile dismissals have unsettled the broader economic mood. While federal unemployment claims haven’t surged in any meaningful way, the Washington D.C. metropolitan area (including parts of Maryland and Virginia) is beginning to show some cracks. Claims in the region have edged higher, hinting at rising anxiety among workers linked to government payrolls.
Much of this increase appears to reflect layoffs among contractors and others dependent on federal funding. These are the kinds of jobs that tend to disappear quickly when the money stops flowing.
Elon Musk’s controversial Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has already dismissed thousands of federal employees. Many of them have since been ordered reinstated by the courts.
Some haven’t returned to work, nor have they qualified for benefits. Instead, they’ve been placed on administrative leave, a bureaucratic limbo that bars them from filing claims but doesn’t officially count as unemployment either. In classic Washington fashion, it’s complicated.
Continued Claims Point to Ongoing Rehiring
The number of people receiving unemployment benefits after their first week, widely seen as a proxy for hiring momentum, fell by 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 1.856 million in the week ending 15 March, according to the latest report from the US Department of Labor.
What Are Continued Claims?
They refer to the number of people still receiving unemployment benefits after filing an initial claim. Economists often treat this figure as a rough proxy for hiring momentum. If continued claims are falling, it suggests that people are either finding new work or exiting the system — both signs of underlying labour market strength.
It’s a modest shift, but one that suggests employers, for now, are still bringing people back into work rather than letting them linger in the system.
