According to data from the United States Department of Labor, during the second week of June the number of unemployment benefits decreased slightly due to a historically low layoff rate.

The analysis detailed that for the week ending June 13, only 4,000 unemployment applications were registered, placing the seasonal figure at 226,000, amid an increase in job offers that for the month of April rose to 7.6 million vacancies compared to the 6.9 million job positions available in March, being one of the highest since 2024.

Although the conflict in the Middle East and rising energy prices, coupled with already high tariff rates, created uncertainty in the labor market, over the past month, employers increased jobs by 172,000, exceeding economists' expectations.

In the last three months, since the start of the war against Iran, the US economy has registered an average of about 188,000 new jobs, even though the unemployment rate remains above 4%.

Given the recent data, Nancy Vanden Houten, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, noted that jobless claims are not expected to follow a consistent upward trend so far.

The specialist also commented that "despite the rebound after recent lows, the level of initial claims remains consistent with a wide range of labor market indicators that show that the employment market has improved, but is not overheating. This will allow the Federal Reserve to keep its monetary policy unchanged while waiting for inflation to decrease," said Vanden Houten.

Weekly jobless claims figures are a real-time indicator of the health of the labor market, as they also partly account for layoff records.