More Americans file for jobless aid but layoffs remain low despite economic uncertainty over tariffs

Key Points

• Filings for jobless aid rose by 14,000 to 240,000 for the week ending May 24, above analyst forecasts but still within the historically healthy 200,000–250,000 range.
• A federal court blocked President Trump from imposing sweeping emergency‐power tariffs, creating uncertainty around U.S. trade policy and its economic impact.
• Despite a slight 0.2% GDP contraction in the first quarter driven by pre‐tariff import surges, the labor market added 177,000 jobs in April and maintained a 4.2% unemployment rate.
• The four‐week average of new jobless claims dipped to 230,750, even as total unemployment benefit recipients rose to 1.92 million.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Filings for U.S. jobless aid jumped last week but American workers broadly remain secure in their jobs despite economic uncertainty over global trade.

Jobless benefits applications rose by 14,000 to 240,000 for the week ending May 24, the Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts had forecast 226,000 new applications.

Weekly applications for jobless benefits are seen as representative of U.S. 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.

A sense of relief swept over financial markets early Thursday after a federal court blocked President Donald Trump from imposing sweeping tariffs on imports under an emergency-powers law. Wednesday’s decision 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.

The Trump administration quickly filed notice of appeal and the Supreme Court will almost certainly be called upon to decide the issue. It remains unclear whether the White House will respond to the ruling by pausing all of its emergency power tariffs in the interim.

Trump had already paused or dialed down many of his tariff threats, but concerns lingered about a global economic slowdown upending a robust U.S. labor market.

In early May, the Federal Reserve held its benchmark lending rate at 4.3% for the third straight meeting after cutting it three times at the end of last year.

Fed chair Jerome Powell 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. Powell said that tariffs have dampened consumer and business sentiment.

The government reported Thursday that the U.S. economy shrank at a 0.2% annual pace in the first quarter of 2025, a slight upgrade from its first estimate. Growth was slowed by a surge in imports as companies in the U.S. tried to bring in foreign goods before Trump’s massive tariffs went into effect.

Trump is attempting to reshape the global economy by dramatically increasing import taxes to rejuvenate the U.S. manufacturing sector.

Trump has also tried to drastically downsize the federal government workforce, but many of those cuts are being challenged in the courts and Congress.

Despite showing traces of weakness during the past year, the labor market remains robust, with plentiful jobs and relatively few layoffs.

The government reported that U.S. employers added a surprisingly strong 177,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate held at a healthy 4.2%.

Companies that have announced job cuts this year include Workday, Dow, CNN, Starbucks, Southwest Airlines, Microsoft and Facebook parent company Meta.

Labor reported Thursday that the four-week average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the week-to-week ups and downs during more volatile stretches, ticked down by 250 to 230,750.

The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of May 17 increased by 26,000 to 1.92 million, the most since November of 2021.