Thursday’s weekly data drop from the Department of Labor led with a not-very-newsworthy number: The volume of people claiming unemployment benefits for the first time barely ticked up.

But there was bigger news. Continuing claims, filed by people who have been receiving benefits for at least a week, increased by 46,000.

That means nearly 1.9 million people are receiving unemployment checks, the most since November 2021.

Some industries had a fair number of layoffs and hiring freezes in 2024. Alison Stevens, senior director of human resources solutions at Paychex, said that’s partly to blame.

“I think in some pockets, the market might be flooded with qualified candidates,” she said.

On top of that, Stevens said people might also collect unemployment longer because they’re being much more selective about the roles they’re seeking.

“Such as they have decided they must work remotely, or if they are going to go into an office, it’s always only going to be within a certain geographical distance from their home,” she said.

Which is actually good for the economy because employees are more likely to stick with and excel at a job if they wait to find one that’s best for them.

But something else is going on here. It’s January, and January is always like this.

“Every employment insurance agency, if you ask them, will say it’s, you know, their busiest month,” said Michele Evermore at the Century Foundation, who specializes in unemployment insurance. “The industries that you see decline in January are seasonal, holiday-related, travel-related, retail and construction and outdoor stuff.”

So there are more unemployed people this week, and people are staying unemployed longer.

But Elise Gould of the Economic Policy Institute isn’t worried. “When we look at continuing claims as a share of the labor force, it’s basically the same as it was pre-COVID,” she said.

Sure, it’s not as low as it has been in the past three years, with a hot labor market, she said.

“I would say that it’s been pretty stable over the last couple of years. You know, maybe a little bit of an uptick. But again, layoffs remain low. Things are still pretty strong,” she said.

And remember, she said, the population is still growing. So we might have more unemployed workers, but we also have more workers in general.