First-time claims for U.S. unemployment compensation remained near a five-decade- low level last week, with employers retaining their workers and searching for more as the United States continues its rapid economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.

The Labor Department said Thursday that 207,000 jobless workers made first-time claims for unemployment compensation, up 7,000 from the revised figure of the week before. The weekly total of new claims has hovered around 200,000, for a month now.

Even with the increase in claims last week, the figures from the last several weeks were well below the 256,000 total in mid-March 2020, when the pandemic first swept into the United States and employers started laying off workers by the hundreds of thousands.

The diminished number of claims for unemployment benefits, down from a 2021 high of 900,000 in one week last January, shows that many employers are hanging on to their workers, even as millions have quit jobs to move to other companies offering higher pay and more benefits.

Many employers are looking for more workers, despite about 6.9 million workers remaining unemployed in the United States.

At the end of November, there were 10.4 million job openings in the U.S., but the skills of available workers often do not match what employers want, or the job openings are not where the unemployed live. In addition, many of the available jobs are low-wage service positions that the jobless are shunning.

U.S. employers added only 210,000 new jobs in November, a lower-than-expected figure. But overall, the U.S. has added 6.1 million jobs through the first 11 months of the year in a much quicker recovery than many economists had originally forecast a year ago. The unemployment rate dropped in November to 4.2%, a figure some experts had projected would not be reached until mid-2024.

Information on job growth in December and the unemployment rate is set for release on Friday.

The U.S. economic advance is occurring even as President Joe Biden and Washington policy makers, along with consumers, voice concerns about the biggest increase in consumer prices in nearly four decades – 6.8% at an annualized rate in November.

The surging inflation rate has pushed policy makers at the country’s central bank, the Federal Reserve, to move more quickly to end their asset purchases they had used to boost the country’s economic recovery, by March rather than in mid-2022 as originally planned.

On Wednesday, minutes of the Fed board’s most recent meeting showed that policy makers are eyeing a faster pace for raising the benchmark interest rate that they have kept at near zero percent since the pandemic started.

The Federal Reserve has said it could raise the rate, which influences the borrowing costs for loans made to businesses and consumers, by a quarter of a percentage point three times this year to tamp down inflationary pressures.
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Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line on Wednesday canceled sailings amid rising fears of omicron-related coronavirus infections that have dampened the nascent recovery of the pandemic-ravaged cruise industry.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. called off its Spectrum of the Seas cruise for January 6 after nine guests on its January 2 trip were identified as close contacts to a local Hong Kong COVID-19 case.

The contacts have tested negative, but the cruise ship will return to Kai Tak Cruise Terminal in Hong Kong on January 5 to test all guests and crew who must take a second test on January 8, the company said.

A similar decision to cancel trips by Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. was made against the backdrop of the United States reporting the highest daily tally of any country for new coronavirus infections on Monday.

“Due to ongoing travel restrictions, we’ve had to modify a few sailings and unfortunately have had to cancel,” the 17-ship strong cruise operator said, with the embarkation dates for a few canceled sailings as far out as late April.

The cruise line, which requires everyone on board to be vaccinated, has also had to cut short a 12-day round trip from Miami on its Norwegian Pearl ship, citing “COVID-related circumstances.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had last week advised people to avoid cruise travel after launching investigations into onboard cases on more than 90 ships. The health agency starts a scrutiny if at least 0.1% of the guests test positive.

Norwegian Cruise said guests, who were supposed to embark on the canceled sailings on the eight ships, will receive full refunds and bonus credits for future bookings.

The omicron-led travel uncertainty is also causing guests on other sailings to cancel their bookings as a few ships have also had to skip ports due to onboard infections.

“We booked the cruise last March and assumed that things would be getting back to normal… by mid-December, I was mentally prepared for a change of plans,” said Holly Bromley, a consulting arborist, who canceled her booking on Norwegian Epic.

Meanwhile, bigger rival Carnival Corp. said it has not canceled any upcoming voyages, but its shares fell on Wednesday to close down 2.6%. Royal Caribbean lost 2.1% and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings 3.6%.

 
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За даними відомства, вартість минулорічного експорту перевищувала цифри 2020-го року на 19,05 мільярда доларів
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