The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits was unchanged last week, staying at a generally low level that mirrors the work market’s solid recuperation from the Covid downturn last year.

Jobless claims stayed at 205,000. The four-week normal, which smooths out week-to-week high points and low points, rose to a little more than 206,000. The numbers recommend that the spread of the Omicron variant didn’t quickly trigger a flood of cutbacks.

“Fortunately, there’s no proof in this information of another flood of new employment cutback,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic investigator at Bankrate.com. “The pandemic’s resurgence is influencing the economy. The inquiry is for how long and how much, and it (is) too soon to know the responses.”

Through and through, 1.9 million Americans were gathering customary unemployment aid the week that finished Dec. 11.

The weekly claims numbers, a proxy for layoffs, have fallen steadily most of the year. Employers are reluctant to let workers go at a time when it’s so tough to find replacements. The United States had a near-record 11 million job openings in October, and 4.2 million Americans quit their jobs — just off September’s record 4.4 million — because there are so many opportunities.

The job market has bobbed back from last year’s brief however serious Covid downturn. At the point when COVID hit, state run governments requested lockdowns, customers dug in at home and numerous businesses shut or cut back hours. Businesses cut in excess of 22 million positions in March and April 2020, and the unemployment rate soared to 14.8%.

Yet, enormous government spending — and in the end the rollout of vaccines — brought the economy back. Bosses have added 18.5 million positions since April 2020, leaving the US still 3.9 million positions shy of what it had before the pandemic. The unemployment rate has tumbled to 4.2%, near what economists consider full employment.