Two hundred and fifteen thousand people filed for unemployment insurance for the first time last week. According to the Department of Labor, that number is down just a bit from the week before.

The key phrase is “just a bit.” About 9,000 fewer claims last week, to be specific. But overall, when every part of the economy seems uncertain and volatile, those jobless claims are steady as it gets.

First-time jobless claims have held pretty stable since the start of March. 

“That is perhaps surprising when we think about what’s going on with policymaking. There’s a lot of chaos,” said Heidi Shierholz, president of the Economic Policy Institute. And chaos, she said, is not ideal for businesses.

But it could be why some companies are clinging to their workers right now, said Tuan Nguyen, an economist at RSM. “Businesses have been continuing to front run tariffs,” he said.

Firms are rushing to get their imports before tariffs hit hard. Plus, Nguyen said, it’s risky to let good workers go. 

“Labor supply has been and will remain tight for years to come due to demographic shifts and restrictive immigration policy,” he said.

Companies could shed workers if consumer sentiment or the stock market continue to fall. But “layoffs are not the first thing that happens when a company starts to get anxious,” said Betsey Stevenson, a former chief economist at the Labor Department.

Before that, she said, firms would stop hiring.

Job openings have ticked down to start the year, but layoffs can be a lagging indicator.

“So when we start to see unemployment insurance claims rise, we're already in a recession,” she said.

Big picture, we’re not there yet, Stevenson added.

But Andy Challenger, vice president at Challenger, Gray & Christmas, pointed out, “We've seen significant job cut announcements in the private sector. Really significant job cut announcements in government.”

Now, those workers don’t get kicked off the payroll right away. “Those announcements often take a little while to take effect,” he said.

So Challenger expects to see unemployment claims rise in the weeks to come.