Jobless claims hit 6-year-low, but hiring lags

WASHINGTON – Americans who have a job may take comfort in knowing that companies are laying off fewer people than at any time since before the Great Recession.

The government said Thursday that weekly applications for U.S. unemployment benefits have averaged 335,500 over the past month. That’s the lowest level since November 2007, which was one month before the recession began.

But while most companies have stopped cutting jobs, many remain reluctant to hire. That’s bad news for the roughly 11.5 million Americans who are unemployed and a major reason the unemployment rate is still so high four years after the recession officially ended.

“We have seen a disconnect between the level of hiring and firing,” said Bricklin Dwyer, an economist at BNP Paribas.

Unemployment applications are a proxy for layoffs. At the depths of the recession, in March 2009, weekly claims surged to 670,000. They have fallen steadily since and are now half that level.

The number of first-time applications did rise slightly last week, to a seasonally adjusted 330,000. But that’s just 5,000 higher than the 5 1/2-year low reached two weeks ago.

Most economists say small shifts like that are normal and applications are essentially at a point where they may not fall much further.

“Readings below 300K are rare and rarely sustained,” Jonathan Basile, director of U.S. economics at Credit Suisse, wrote in a note to clients.

The Labor Department says layoffs have averaged 1.6 million a month through June, fewer than a monthly average of nearly 1.8 million in the pre-recession year 2006.

The unemployment rate dropped to a 4 1/2-year low of 7.4 percent last month, down from 7.6 percent in June. That is still well above the 5 percent to 6 percent associated with a normal economy.