The daily business briefing: October 15, 2021

Weekly new jobless claims fall to pandemic-era low, stocks surge after strong start to earnings season, and more

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1. Weekly jobless claims fall below 300,000 for 1st time since pandemic hit

The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell below 300,000 last week for the first time since the pandemic crisis began, the Labor Department reported Thursday. First-time jobless claims dropped by 36,000 to 293,000 for the week that ended Oct. 9 in what was widely interpreted as a sign that hiring was bouncing back as the summer coronavirus surge driven by the highly infectious Delta variant wanes. Continuing claims, which run behind the "headline number" by one week, also dropped to their own pandemic-era low, having fallen by 134,000 to 2.59 million. The decline came after a record 4.3 million Americans left their jobs in August, suggesting one reason for declining layoffs was that many workers are leaving voluntarily.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.