Commentary
A small business owner with whom I was speaking raised an odd point. He has many jobs open right now and advertises them. Many people apply and he clicks through on the online portal to offer interviews. Then something odd happens. He never hears from them. Maybe they took some other position.
That’s what he believed for a while. Now he realizes something stranger. Many of these people apply for work with no intention of following through simply to keep their unemployment benefits rolling in.
How many people have figured out this racket? There’s no way to know but it could account for this spooky data that hit us this week. Initial jobless claims rose to a seasonally adjusted 251,000 from 244,000 the week before. Crucially, this is above the 2019 level of 218,000….