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United States Initial Jobless Claims
Initial jobless claims for United States count the number of people filing for unemployment insurance for the first time in the prior week. As a weekly indicator it is the most timely labour market data available.
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Why Initial Jobless Claims matters for USD
Weekly claims provide a real-time read on whether layoffs are accelerating or decelerating. A sustained rise above 300,000 (for the US) historically precedes recessions and can rapidly shift usd sentiment.
How to interpret this series
Claims below consensus indicate a resilient labour market and support the usd. Rising claims are an early warning of deteriorating employment conditions that may eventually force the Federal Reserve to cut rates.
Historical Initial Jobless Claims
Source: BLS. Cadence: Weekly. Unit: Thousands. History from 2000-01-01 (26.5 years).
Recent announcements
Each release gets a durable child page so data, forecast, previous value, and raw fields can be cited directly.
Related United States indicators
Move to adjacent releases in the same macro category.
Average Hourly Earnings
Measures the change in the price businesses pay for labor.
Average Weekly Earnings / Wages
Measures nominal wage growth.
Employment Level
Total number of employed persons.
Full-Time Employment
Number of persons employed full-time.
Job Openings
Total number of unfilled job positions, a key indicator of labor market demand and tightness.
Labor Force Participation Rate
Ratio of the labor force to the working-age population.
NAIRU (Natural Rate of Unemployment)
Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment — the estimated unemployment rate consistent with stable inflation, published by the Congressional Budget Office.
Non-Farm Payrolls (NFP)
Number of workers in the U.S. excluding farm workers.
Part-Time Employment
Number of persons employed part-time.
Unemployment Rate
Percentage of the labor force that is unemployed.
Common questions
Editorial context for readers and AI agents using this page as a cited country indicator source.
How often is United States Initial Jobless Claims updated?
Initial Jobless Claims for United States is released on a weekly schedule by Federal Reserve (or the relevant national statistics agency). FXMacroData ingests each new value within seconds of the official publication and exposes the exact announcement timestamp on every record.
What unit is Initial Jobless Claims reported in?
The series is published in Thousands. The exact unit is also returned on every API response under the indicator metadata.
Where does FXMacroData source United States Initial Jobless Claims data?
Data is fetched directly from Federal Reserve or the official national statistics publication for United States. The source URL is preserved on every announcement record so downstream consumers can trace the value back to its primary release.
How do I query Initial Jobless Claims for United States via the API?
Issue a GET request to /api/v1/announcements/usd/initial_jobless_claims?api_key=YOUR_API_KEY. The response contains a chronological list of observations with values, release dates, and announcement timestamps. USD announcement data is public; other currencies require a Professional API key.