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U.S. weekly jobless claims total 860,000, vs 875,000 expected

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 First-time claims for unemployment insurance beat Wall Street estimates last week as the U.S. economy enters a critical new stage.

Filings totaled 860,000 for the week ended Sept. 12, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected 875,000, against the previous week’s 893,000.

The number represents a modest downshift in claims, which had hit a peak of 6.9 million in late March as the economy shut down to try to slow the coronavirus pandemic. Since then, the labor market has recovered though millions remain displaced from job closures associated with the virus measures.

Claims had remained above 1 million a week through late August. Earlier in September, the Labor Department changed the way it adjusted for seasonal factors to account better for the influence the virus measures have had on the economy.

The economy faces new challenges now after a summer of strong employment growth. Economists and healthcare professionals worry that a resurgence in Covid-19 cases could stall or reverse the gains the economy has seen in the past several months.

Retail jobs are rapidly returning, cloud engineering roles are skyrocketing, and essential workers continue to be in high demand. These are just some of the findings from LinkedIn’s latest job posting data, detailed below.  

While hiring around the world got off to a relatively quick recovery, it’s been rockier in recent weeks, according to LinkedIn Chief Economist Karin Kimbrough. Still, the data below shows encouraging signs for retail, one of the industries hit hardest by COVID-19.  

Read on to see which jobs saw the biggest spikes in demand over the past month, along with the roles attracting the highest demand overall. These insights are updated monthly to help talent leaders and recruiters make hiring decisions, manage expectations, and better understand the competitive talent landscape. 

The return of retail, tricky tax calculations and an increasingly remote world are driving up demand for certain jobs 

Retail is recruiting again: job posts in retail rose by 66% in August, more than any other large sector, and retail jobs represent five of the top ten roles showing the greatest growth in demand. With governments around the world working to help retailers re-open safely, many stores are hiring to keep up with new waves of customers.

Demand for tax associates also rose by 600% in August, which may be fueled by the extra complexity businesses face when filing taxes during the COVID-19 crisis. In the United States, for example, businesses that received loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) can apply for loan forgiveness on certain expenses. 

Demand for cloud computing engineers, already growing pre-COVID, just grew 220% in the past month. That may be because so many employees are working from home: the cloud services that remote workers rely on have never been so business-critical. 

Salespeople and software engineers continue to drive the highest demand, along with in-person essential workers

Even before COVID, roles in sales and software often ranked among the most in-demand, and the pandemic hasn’t changed that — perhaps because many of these employees can work effectively from home. What has changed is the much stronger demand for in-person frontline roles that are especially essential — and at-risk — during the pandemic. 

For months now, nursing, delivery, and retail jobs have topped the list of most in-demand jobs, and it’s likely to stay that way until risk from coronavirus falls significantly.

Check back on this post in mid-October, when we’ll be ready to share the latest data from September. 

Methodology

Based on global LinkedIn data on all premium job posts in July and August. The most in-demand jobs are those with the highest number of job posts. The jobs with the fastest-growing demand are those with the biggest percentage growth in the number of job posts, from July 2020 to August 2020; jobs with fewer than 500 job posts in July were excluded.

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