Is Omicron causing a spike in jobless claims?

 Brandon Morse:

Omicron has brought with it some complications for our society but despite cases breaching the 1 million mark, deaths have trended downward and hospitalizations are expected to stay lower than they had under previous variants, proving that the latest COVID-19 variant is more bark than bite.

But people are expecting the bite, and that’s likely why more people are staying home instead of going out and working. As reported by the Washington Examiner, jobless claims have risen past what experts expected, climbing to 207,000 last week instead of declining to 195,000 as originally predicted. This is on top of the disappointing jobs report from November that also surpassed the expert’s expectations with 300,000 fewer jobs being added to the economy than anticipated.

Omicron is definitely to blame for some of this, but taking a step back, one has to wonder if other factors went far in contributing to it.

For one, the Biden administration and its lapdog media spent a good deal of time and effort scaring people to death about Omicron, causing blue state leaders to take action and further complicating the jobs market. Moreover, it’s likely that many private citizens were terrified of going out, choosing instead to file a jobless claim and collect money from the government.

Rest assured, this is purely Biden’s failing and not the private sector’s. Amid all these bleak numbers is the fact that numbers show employers are doing what’s necessary to hang onto employees. Layoffs are happening at a much slower rate....
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 Biden has been a bust when it comes to shutting down the virus that he promised.  While he has not shut down the economy directly it looks like he has persuaded some to shut down their jobs.

See, also:

Navy and Marines move forward with discharges over coronavirus vaccine refusals