Labor Department: Unemployment applications reach 2007 levels

Last October the Bureau of Labor Statistics made a shocking announcement: employers added more than 204,000 jobs in October, despite the 16-day government shutdown. Although the unemployment rate went up, some economists eel this is a step toward economic recovery.

Since that announcement, there haven’t been too many signs that support a recovering market, but now there is: the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits.

When the recession began in late 2007 and 2008, thousands of Americans had to apply for these benefits to make ends meet after getting laid off. Conditions became so severe for private and public sector jobs that many had to use HR software to make multiple rounds of layoffs, causing more than 653,000 citizens to file an unemployment claim, according a chart from USA Today.

Although applications have steadily increased since that record high, April 5, 2014’s filings dropped down to 300,000 forms — this is the first time since May 2007 that the Labor Department saw such figures.

“The winter claims boost from adverse weather has now been reversed with gusto,” Action Economics chief economist Michael Englund told the news source.

Economists at Bloomberg estimated that April’s jobless applications would be anywhere between 310,000 to 320,000, so this report exceeded even their predictions. Possible reasons include proactive hiring efforts or fewer layoffs from employers.

“Slack in the labor force should start to be absorbed more quickly, and that should put some upward on wages as well,” Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies LLC  added.

Employers who plan on carrying out a hiring spree in the near future or are looking into create new departments can benefit from a comprehensive HR software solution.

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