Economic activity, at least as measured in March, was mixed. In other words, things could have been worse.

But across the 12 central bank districts, the change from February to March was palpable in terms of sentiment: Uncertainty tied to tariffs and trade wars was “pervasive,” according to comments from bankers. Overall, four districts saw growth.  Three districts saw things as relatively unchanged. That left five districts with declining trends.

Spending, overall, was lower, at least for non-automobile purchases. In a demonstration of front-loading ahead of tariffs, vehicle sales gained ground.

The Federal Reserve released the third installment of this year’s Beige Book showing decreased performance on consumer spending in six of 12 districts, while only three saw an uptick. On a positive note, five districts reported improvements in the job market while three reported worse conditions.

Given the front-loading, the banks’ observations indicate that retail figures for the sector may worsen in the near term due to this substitution effect.

As recently reported by PYMNTS, motor vehicle and parts dealers performed strongly in March, growing 5.3% over the month after contractions in January (-3.4%) and February (-1.6%). Compared to March 2024, the sector experienced an 8.8% increase.

Wait and See Approach

Regarding employment, reports indicate that hiring was generally slower for consumer-facing firms than for business-to-business firms. Another symptom of the underlying uncertainty can be found in several districts reporting that firms were taking what has been described in the report as a “wait-and-see approach” to employment, pausing or slowing hiring until there is more clarity on economic conditions. Reports of upcoming layoffs remained scattered.

This generally coincides with the latest batch of government data on the topic. The most recent Jobs Openings and Labor Turnover Survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics points toward muted but stable trend of job openings and separations, consistent with a general strategy of reducing headcount by attrition rather than layoffs.

A rather lackluster performance in the job market can soon become a deterrent to consumer spending. A recent survey run by the New York Fed shows that just 54.8% of respondents were satisfied with their wage at their current job in March 2025, down from 55.9% in November 2024 and 55.6% in March 2024.

This means that nearly half of consumers find their current compensation insufficient or incompatible with their professional proficiency. The share of respondents satisfied with prospects for advancement at current job also fell in March, to 48.7% from 50.4% in the November run.

Reports from multiple economic outlets, like the Conference Board, point toward depressed consumer sentiment as a key limitation to the economy operating at its full potential, inducing downward adjustment to economic projections. We may not be in the recession zone — but connecting the dots shows that many observers anticipating disappointing economic growth.

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The rate of inflation in manufacturing hit a 29-month high, while that in services rose to a seven-month high, S&P Global said in a Wednesday press release outlining its flash Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey data, which precedes the final April PMI survey data to be released May 1 and May 5.

The release attributed the higher prices to rising costs caused by tariffs, import prices and labor costs.

“These higher prices will inevitably feed through to higher consumer inflation, potentially limiting the scope for the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates at a time when a slowing economy looks in need of a boost,” Chris Williamson, chief business economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in the release.

The survey also found that April has also seen the growth in U.S. business activity slow to a 16-month low and business expectations about the year ahead drop to one of the lowest levels since the pandemic.

The release attributed the slowdown of growth in the service sector to uncertainty about the economy and tariffs and a fall in exports of services like tourism-related activity and cross-border services.

In manufacturing, a slight increase in domestic orders, which was driven in part by tariffs, was partially offset by a fall in export orders that was linked to trade policy, according to the release.

“Confidence about business conditions in the year ahead has meanwhile deteriorated sharply, worsening among manufacturers and service providers alike, largely thanks to growing concerns about the impact of recent government policy announcements,” Williamson said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said Tuesday (April 22) that it reduced its forecast for economic growth in the United States in 2025 by 0.9 percentage point — from 2.7% in January to 1.8% currently — because of the impact of tariffs and escalating trade tension.

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said Sunday (April 20) that tariff-related “panic buying” in the U.S. could create an “artificially high” level of economic activity ahead of an economic slump.

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“Fiscal support for businesses and communities impacted by severe trade dislocations should be both temporary and targeted, with a strong emphasis on transparency and effective cost management,” the IMF said in a blog post.

The organization said this while warning that governments need to “put their fiscal house in order” at a time when public debt levels are rising in many countries.

The IMF expects global public debt to increase by 2.8 percentage points this year, which would push debt levels above 95% of gross domestic product, according to the post.

It also expects public debt to near 100% of GDP by the end of the decade.

In a “severely adverse scenario,” global public debt could reach 117% of GDP by 2027 — a level that would be the highest since World War II, per the post.

“Debt levels may rise even further than the debt-at-risk estimates if revenues and economic output decline more significantly than current forecasts due to increased tariffs and weakened growth prospects,” the post said. “Additionally, escalating geoeconomic uncertainties could heighten debt risks, driving up public debt through increased expenditures, particularly in defense. Demands for fiscal support could also rise for those vulnerable to severe disruptions from trade shocks, pushing up spending.”

This blog post came a day after the IMF reduced its forecast for economic growth in the United States in 2025 by 0.9 percentage point, attributing the downgrade primarily to the introduction of reciprocal tariffs announced by President Donald Trump on April 2.

The IMF now projects U.S. GDP growth at 1.8%, down from its January estimate of 2.7%, according to the World Economic Outlook it released Tuesday (April 22).

“The common denominator … is that tariffs are a negative supply shock for the economy imposing them, as resources are reallocated toward the production of noncompetitive goods, with a resulting loss of aggregate productivity, lower activity, and higher production costs and prices,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, wrote in the outlook.

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In its World Economic Outlook released Tuesday (April 22), the IMF projected U.S. GDP growth at 1.8%, down from its January estimate of 2.7%.

The IMF attributed the 0.9 percentage point downgrade primarily to the introduction of reciprocal tariffs announced by President Donald Trump April 2. These tariffs have since been suspended, but the damage has been done. The tariff announcement triggered retaliatory measures from other countries.

Additionally, the S&P 500 has dropped 9% since the tariff announcement, CNBC reported Tuesday.

“The common denominator … is that tariffs are a negative supply shock for the economy imposing them, as resources are reallocated toward the production of noncompetitive goods, with a resulting loss of aggregate productivity, lower activity, and higher production costs and prices,” Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, the IMF’s chief economist, wrote in the outlook.

The resulting uncertainty could prompt firms to delay investment and reduce purchases, he wrote.

The latest growth forecast was compiled in less than 10 days. The process typically takes more than two months but was done in a hurry due to the sudden nature of the policy changes, Gourinchas wrote.

While the IMF is not predicting a recession for the U.S., Gourinchas said Tuesday that the probability of a downturn is now 40%, up from 25% in October, CNBC reported.

Looking at the global picture, the IMF lowered the growth forecast for 2025 to 2.8% from 3.3% in January, according to the outlook.

Inflation forecasts are trending upward. U.S. inflation is predicted to reach 3% in 2025, one percentage point higher than the IMF’s January projection, per the outlook, which cited “stubborn price dynamics in the services sector as well as a recent uptick in the growth of the price of core goods (excluding food and energy) and the supply shock from recent tariffs.”

The inflation projection for advanced economies, which include the U.S., the United Kingdom and Canada, was raised to 2.5% for 2025, up 0.4 percentage points from January, per the outlook.

“In particular, the effects of recently imposed tariffs on inflation across countries will depend on whether the tariffs are perceived to be temporary or permanent, the extent to which firms adjust margins to offset increased import costs, and whether imports are invoiced in U.S. dollars or local currency,” the outlook said.

Meanwhile, businesses that proactively manage their working capital could gain a competitive advantage in today’s shifting environment. Earnings results reported this month revealed that flexibility and liquidity are now the name of the game.

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The President Donald Trump administration doubled down on tariffs with its reinstated Section 232 measures, slapping 25% duties on steel imports and eliminating country exemptions while introducing stringent “melted and poured” requirements to qualify for duty-free status. The metals industry is bracing for impact.

“Trump is getting serious about this,” Shep Hickey, CEO at metal digital marketplace Bryzos, told PYMNTS Karen Webster. “He’s trying to level set trade imbalances and get the domestic engine of manufacturing really running at a higher RPM.”

“What he’s doing is a kind of ‘anaconda plan,’” Hickey said. “He’s closing off all possible entrances.”

The broader implication is that importers are out of escape routes. In the first iteration of the steel tariffs during Trump’s initial term, importers found ways around the duties by bringing in unfinished goods or routing shipments through countries like Canada.

“It was a bit of a charade… They were straw countries,” Hickey said. “Businesses could import as an unfinished good, finish it elsewhere, and sidestep the tariffs. Now you can’t really do that because everybody has a tariff.”

Still, even as the administration pushes for domestic revitalization, the U.S. does not have the capacity to meet its steel demand.

Price Pressures and Margin Compression

The supply shortage has already triggered price hikes, not just because mills are charging more, but also because distributors are thinking about replacement costs. That calculus has a ripple effect.

“We’re seeing prices go up,” Hickey said. “Businesses are trying to conserve stock, and the easiest way to do that is raise prices or just stop selling.”

“It’s not what you paid for your inventory — it’s what it’ll cost you to replace it. That’s what’s driving the decision making now,” he added, noting that “some portion of marketplace users were buying inordinate amounts of metal” to hedge against price hikes.

The political goal of the tariffs is ultimately to revitalize U.S. manufacturing and reduce dependency on foreign steel. But the real-world implications may remain far murkier, and there is no fast fix in sight, he said.

For the final seller in the supply chain, the squeeze is acute.

“During Trump 1.0, the tariffs mostly compressed profit for whoever was last in the chain,” Hickey said. “They quoted a price, they’re locked into it, and now their costs are going up, but the buyer doesn’t want to hear that.”

“You can’t just water the lawn and have a steel mill pop out of the ground,” he said. “All that takes time. And it’s not just build time, it’s permitting time. Sometimes the permitting takes longer than the build.”

Navigating Toward Homeostasis on the Back of Digital Innovation

Ultimately, Hickey said he believes markets and people will adapt.

“People are clever and industrious,” he said. “Engineers are already being told, ‘You can’t use that material anymore, find an alternative.’ There’s always a railing that needs to be fixed. And the people who make those railings will find a way.”

At the same time, industry sentiment is that the administration’s approach will become more nuanced over time.

However, Hickey cautioned that the reshaping of global trade is a long-term play.

“You don’t fix 80 years of imbalance in one term,” he said. “My concern is how do you make sure this lasts longer than four years? Because if this gets reversed in 2028, all you’ve done is provide a lot of pain without lasting gain.”

There’s also a broader philosophical question emerging: Have Americans been underpaying for steel all along?

“Maybe the domestic price is actually the fair market price,” Hickey said. “We haven’t seen China’s books. Who knows how much they’re subsidizing their mills?”

For all PYMNTS B2B coverage, subscribe to the daily B2B Newsletter.

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“The average reservation wage — the lowest wage respondents would be willing to accept for a new job — dropped sharply to $74,236 from a series high of $82,135 in December,” the research group of the New York Fed said in a Monday (April 21) post on X.

The post shared that finding from the SCE Labor Market Survey, which is fielded every four months as part of the Survey of Consumer Expectations.

The March survey also found that workers’ satisfaction with wage compensation, nonwage benefits and promotion opportunities declined, with drops of 1.1, 1.2 and 1.7 percentage points, respectively, since the previous survey.

“Satisfaction with wage compensation is at its lowest level since November 2021,” the New York Fed said when announcing the survey results.

The latest edition of the survey also found that the average expected likelihood of receiving a job offer in the next four months decreased by 1.6 percentage points.

There were also declines in the shares of respondents who said they expected to work beyond the age of 62 and beyond the age of 67, according to the survey.

The Department of Labor said Thursday (April 17) that the number of initial claims for unemployment insurance in the U.S. fell by 9,000 during the week ended April 12.

Bloomberg reported Thursday that the number was “consistent with a stable market,” while Reuters said “low layoffs have anchored the labor market” but added that economists expect unemployment to rise in the coming months due to declines in business sentiment.

In some other findings from its March Survey of Consumer Expectations released earlier, the New York Fed said April 14 that consumers’ unemployment expectations — or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now — jumped by 4.6 percentage points to reach the highest reading since the depth of the pandemic in April 2020.

The survey also found that the mean perceived probability of losing one’s job in the next 12 months increased by 1.6 percentage points to the highest level in a year.

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With the news full of geopolitical tension, trade finance drama, shifting regulations and the fresh memory of a disruptive global health crisis, uncertainty has become the norm rather than the exception.

But for most companies, vacations are not high on the agenda. Pressing pause on critical operations is simply not an option. Companies must continue paying suppliers and employees, upgrading infrastructures, and serving customers regardless of tariffs or looming regulatory frameworks.

That sentiment emerged in a conversation among PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster, Boost Payment Solutions CEO Dean Leavitt and Ingo Payments CEO Drew Edwards. Their discussion, inspired by installments of the PYMNTS Certainty Project explored not how consumers would navigate the current and short-term economic landscape, but how companies are going to navigate it. What strategies are best suited to thrive amid this uncertainty? From cross-border payment complexities to payment modernization, the dialogue offered a surprisingly optimistic outlook: While uncertainty may swirl, business continues, and opportunities are poised to take center stage.

Both Edwards and Leavitt have their hands in the behind-the-scenes, infrastructure-oriented business of payments. Ingo Payments focuses on powering money mobility ecosystems with new payments economics; Boost on payments automation and optimizing the use of commercial cards. In Leavitt’s case, the current situation calls for at least some degree of reexamination regarding cross-border activities.

“We are in 182 countries, so what we are seeing is some reticence for certain cross-border transactions,” Leavitt said. “Especially when it’s U.S. companies paying suppliers around the world, we’ve definitely seen a bit of a ‘wait-and-see’ approach just to see what’s going to shake out with the tariffs.”

For domestic operations, Edwards said the impact of geopolitical volatility has not yet dramatically affected his company’s core business, which focuses on account funding, turning payments into new accounts and ecosystems and real-time disbursements.

“It doesn’t impact me that much because we’re not a consumer-direct model,” Edwards said. “All the macro buying behaviors, because everybody’s scared, might cause the tide to fall a bit, but we haven’t seen that trickle down in a big way yet.”

However, Edwards pointed to corporate caution, particularly among technology companies.

“We are seeing some corporate reticence, preemptive layoffs that impact tech resources and product roadmaps,” he said.

Leavitt and Edwards both said that, despite cross-border headwinds or inflationary fears, doing business — what they define as business continuity — remains paramount. Enterprises know they must preserve their supplier ecosystems to remain competitive. This sometimes prompts them to accelerate digitization efforts precisely because adopting modern payment tools can mean strengthening partnerships.

Uncertainty and the C-Suite

Webster pointed out during the discussion that key drivers in uncertainty-proofing operations are the roles of the chief financial officer and treasurer. Today’s finance chiefs are not merely tasked with number crunching — they are viewed as strategists who can help the enterprise weather economic storms.

Forecasting and scenario-planning tools have grown more sophisticated. Edwards said that for his business partners, the heightened role of the treasurer spurs them to scrutinize the full gamut of payment and disbursement choices.

“It used to be an educational process just explaining what digitizing payments meant,” he said. “Now we see CFOs and treasurers wanting to optimize it. They want to know, ‘How can we make these processes even more economically attractive? How do we drive loyalty, create new revenue streams, or turn what has traditionally been a cost center into something else?’”

While neither Leavitt nor Edwards reported seeing a complete overhaul in how CFOs approach their daily responsibilities, both leaders confirmed that heightened interest in digital solutions with new business models is a notable trend. This lines up with the broader market imperative to remain agile and preserve working capital in uncertain times.

CFOs and treasurers also have their hand in risk and risk management. The full range of exposures in that area now includes more than the usual transaction fraud. Partners themselves could become liabilities if they lack deep capitalization or robust compliance frameworks. Regulatory scrutiny is also on the rise, particularly in the banking world and the evolving FinTech space.

How should CFOs and treasurers deal with risk and the threat of fraud? Edwards spelled out a multi-pronged approach.

“There’s fraud risk, which can be expensive and scary, and then there’s vendor risk,” he said. “Companies get in trouble in cycles like this, especially if they’re thinly capitalized. There’s also regulatory banking risk. There are banks right now, even before the tariff issue, that have gotten in a ditch with regulators. So, when we talk about risk, it’s way too early to say how the tariff situation will fully play out. But it has certainly placed risk management in the forefront of everyone’s mind.”

Leavitt concurred, noting that well-established solution providers can attract companies precisely because they offer a sense of security.

“Part of the role that we serve is to create trust,” he said. “When there’s uncertainty, there is a flight towards safety, across many different dimensions: economic safety, security. Our long-standing relationships with financial institutions mean they count on us to be consistent and safe.”

Keeping an Eye on Payments Modernization

Several years of disruption from COVID and geopolitical tensions have accelerated a trend toward modernizing payments. The adage, “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” holds less sway in an environment where paper checks introduce delays and hamper transparency.

Both executives said the shift to digital forms of payment is well underway, with no sign of retreat.

“There’s nobody in my world saying, ‘We may go into a recession, let’s keep printing checks,’” Edwards said.

That might have been unthinkable just a few years ago, but digitization is now the rule rather than the exception, especially for real-time disbursements and commercial card payments, he said.

Leavitt said the contractual nature of B2B agreements means there may not be an immediate push for real-time settlement, but digitization is, nevertheless, accelerating. Suppliers may jump at faster settlement, particularly if it means guaranteeing quicker access to capital.

“A payment might be due in 30 days, but the buyer might typically pay in 45 or 60,” Leavitt said. “If suppliers can get paid at day 30 for agreeing to accept commercial cards or other digital solutions, they do it. That gives them a working capital advantage.”

Embracing new technology is a prime way to weather ups and downs.

“In an environment like this, the push to modernize payments and find new ways to optimize money flow is magnified because CFOs are asking themselves: ‘How do we stay relevant and cut costs — or even turn a cost center into a revenue center?’” Edwards said.

Comparing Today’s Uncertainty to COVID

Perhaps no benchmark stands out for abrupt disruption and uncertainty more than the COVID-19 pandemic. Although some parallels exist, such as sudden-almost-overnight supply chain backups, macroeconomic tremors, uncertainty about when there could be more certainty and sudden regulatory shifts, Leavitt and Edwards agreed this latest round of turmoil is not a repeat of those “bad old days.”

Where COVID locked down entire economies overnight, today’s environment involves incremental changes in cross-border tariffs, new regulations and the specter of a potential economic slowdown.

“The pandemic turned out to be a boom for the consumer side of the economy — money was flowing like crazy,” Edwards said. “We had parts of our business that skyrocketed because people needed money to move digitally, immediately. Now the worry is an actual reduction in overall demand if consumers and businesses get spooked. That’s a different issue.”

Yet both leaders said the pandemic taught businesses to be “scrappy,” as Webster put it. Those that pivoted to digital solutions and embraced new ways of moving money emerged leaner and more capable of handling the next big upset. That culture shift remains a source of optimism.

“If anything, this environment is shining a big bright light on the need to keep investing in modernization,” Edwards said. “Companies that do so are going to be in a better position than their competitors when the dust settles.”

Reason for Optimism

In a world where headlines warn of rising tariffs, cross-border tensions and inflationary pressures, a persistent question emerges: Will businesses clamp down and wait it out or charge ahead with digitization and innovation? As Leavitt and Edwards said, companies have learned from the shock of COVID that uncertainty is inevitable, but agility is a choice. By embracing modern payment solutions, optimizing the office of the CFO and doubling down on secure, trustworthy partnerships, businesses can navigate these tumultuous times.

“There’s reason for optimism,” Webster said, adding that “there are opportunities for those who find them and pursue them.”

When asked if another wave of uncertainty might upend business altogether, Edwards pointed back to lessons learned from the pandemic.

“It’s a different world than COVID, but businesses got scrappy then, and that’s not going away,” he said. “We’re all in better shape to handle the next storm.”

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That’s according to Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee, who discussed the uptick in purchasing by businesses and consumers in response to new tariffs Sunday (April 20) in an interview with “Face the Nation” on CBS.

“That kind of preemptive purchasing is probably even more pronounced on the business side,” Goolsbee said. “We heard a lot about preemptive building-up of inventories that could last 60 days, 90 days, if there [was] going to be more uncertainty.”

This activity, whether it means businesses building up inventory or consumers buying costly electronics earlier than planned, could inflate U.S. economic activity in April and lead to a slowdown in the months ahead, Goolsbee argued.

“Activity might look artificially high in the initial, and then by the summer, might fall off — because people have bought it all,” he said.

Some industries impacted by the tariffs, such as the automotive sector, are most likely to build up big stockpiles of inventories in advance of higher levies on products from other countries. 

President Donald Trump has paused the tariffs on a host of other countries at a baseline 10%, with that freeze set to expire July 9.

“We don’t know, 90 days from now, when they’ve revisited the tariffs, we don’t know how big they’re going to be,” Goolsbee said.

For now, at least, the American consumer appears to still be on solid footing, according to PYMNTS coverage last week of the first-quarter earnings results of three of the nation’s largest financial institutions.

The situation remains a bit more complicated for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Tom Priore, president of Priority, told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in a recent interview.

Among the key signs to look out for when gauging the health of small businesses include whether they are retaining employees or laying them off, and tracking the levels of card delinquencies, which indicate a stretched consumer who might cut back drastically.

The philosophy of what Priore termed “American optimism” will prevail, and that optimism is a fixture of the business landscape.

“The uncertainty today will be reconciled and cleaned up,” he told Webster, adding that “our mission is to provide that flexible financial tool set … it doesn’t matter what environment you’re in. Accelerating cash flow and optimizing working capital are always good things.”

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As Bloomberg News reports, these include a forecast from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — expected Tuesday (April 22) — which will lower the group’s outlook for economic growth. 

“Our new growth projections will include notable markdowns, but not recession,” said IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva. “We will also see markups to the inflation forecasts for some countries. We will caution that protracted high uncertainty raises the risk of financial-market stress.”

The week will bring new purchasing manager indexes and business surveys from several countries, as well as revised data from the University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment survey and new insights from the Fed’s Beige Book on regional economic conditions.

The report said this combined picture could help finance ministers and central bankers meeting in Washington this week assess the impact of President Donald Trump’s efforts to reshape global trade via tariffs, some of which are now on hold.

Georgieva told Bloomberg she hopes this week, which also features a meeting of Group of 20 finance chiefs, might bring down the temperature in global trade relations.

“We need a more resilient world economy, not a drift to division,” she said. The meetings in D.C. “provide a vital forum for dialogue at a vital time.”

In other tariff-related news, PYMNTS recently explored the levies’ impact on small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in a conversation with Priority CEO Tom Priore.

“From the SMB standpoint, the exposure to tariffs at the supply chain level may actually be pretty small … but the main concern and the damage to small business lies with consumer uncertainty,” he told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster.

Research by PYMNTS Intelligence found that close to 80% of consumers are pulling back on at least some purchases because of this uncertainty, as they look to build up their savings or wait to see what comes next.

“Where the rubber’s going to meet the road is what the consumer decisions are,” Priore said, adding, “If consumer spending does slow, it’s going to affect all businesses.”

Against that backdrop, SMBs are aiming to be predictive and proactive about managing their operations, he said, trying to figure out how they can best manage cash flow and optimize working at a time when many businesses depend on the personal credit cards of their owners.

“What we’re seeing, not just on the small business front but also with larger companies, is the utilization of credit products to extend working capital,” Priore said.

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The number of jobless claims dropped to 215,000, down from the previous week’s revised level of 224,000, the Department of Labor said in a Thursday (April 17) press release.

The four-week moving average declined by 2,500 and was gauged at 220,750, down from the previous week’s revised number of 223,250, according to the release.

Both the number of initial claims and the four-week moving average were the lowest in two months, Bloomberg reported Thursday.

The number of initial claims was lower than the 225,000 forecast by economists and was “consistent with a stable market,” the report said.

Economists polled by Reuters also expected to see 225,000 initial claims during the week.

Reuters said that “low layoffs have anchored the labor market,” but added that economists expect unemployment to rise in the coming months due to declines in business sentiment.

The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said Monday (April 14) that unemployment expectations — or the mean probability that the U.S. unemployment rate will be higher one year from now — jumped by 4.6 percentage points in March and reached the highest reading since the depth of the pandemic in April 2020.

The Department of Labor also reported Thursday that the number for insured unemployment increased by 41,000 during the week ended April 5. It rose to 1,885,000, up from the previous week’s revised level of 1,844,000.

The insured unemployment rate remained at 1.2%, unchanged from the previous week, according to the press release.

The states with the greatest decreases in initial claims during the week ended April 5 were Kentucky, Iowa and New York. They saw decreases of 2,955, 1,254 and 1,085, respectively, per the release.

In comments submitted to the Department of Labor, Iowa attributed its decline in initial claims to fewer layoffs in manufacturing, while New York pointed to fewer layoffs in three industries: accommodation and food services; transportation and warehousing; and information industries. Kentucky did not submit comments.

California had the largest increase in initial claims, at 5,410, and did not submit comments to the Department of Labor. Oregon, which had the second biggest increase, with 1,331 initial claims, cited layoffs in the educational services industry.

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