Initial U.S. Jobless Claims Fell Last Week

By Matt Grossman

U.S. initial jobless claims moved lower last week, according to the Department of Labor, underscoring that there has been no big increase in newly employed workers through the end of March.

The week through March 29 brought 219,000 initial jobless claims, compared with 225,000 a week earlier. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had been forecasting 228,000 initial claims.

The number of continuing claims, a gauge of the size of the unemployed population, rose to 1.9 million in the week through March 22, the highest level since November 2021. A week earlier, continuing claims held at 1.85 million. The continuing-claims data lag the data on new filings by a week.

The figures are a final weekly labor-market snapshot before the Labor Department's full jobs report for March lands on Friday. Economists believe the unemployment rate held steady at 4.1% last month, per the Journal's survey, and that the economy added 140,000 jobs, a slight slowing from February.

Even those figures could quickly turn stale, however, as companies and workers react to the Trump administration's seismic barrage of tariffs announced Wednesday. U.S. stock futures and yields on U.S. Treasury debt have both plummeted since the announcement, signaling investors are worried about the tariffs' impact on economic growth.

Meanwhile, analysts have also been studying weekly jobless-claims figures for signs of the headcount cuts within the federal government and in outside contractors that have seen canceled contracts.

In the week through March 22, the latest data available, new claims in the federal unemployment system fell to 564, from 821 a week earlier.

Private-sector claims were estimated at 874 in the District of Columbia in the week through March 29, down from a week earlier. Private-sector claims declined week over week in Maryland and Virginia as well.

Write to Matt Grossman at matt.grossman@wsj.com