Please try another search
© Reuters.
By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- The recovery of the U.S. labor market from the Covid-19 pandemic remains uneven, official data showed on Thursday, as layoffs appeared to tick up again.
The number of people filing initial claims for jobless benefits rose to 744,000, defying expectations for a drop to 680,000. The previous week’s number was also revised up a touch.
The numbers come only a week after the monthly labor market report for March showed the U.S. economy creating jobs at its fastest rate in months.
Continuing claims, which are reported with a one-week lag to initial ones, did fall modestly to 3.734 million, from an upwardly-revised figure of 3.750 million the previous week. Meanwhile, the overall number of people claiming benefits under unemployment-related programs fell by 51,000 to 18.165 million.
Weekly numbers from the Labor Department have been subject to a high degree of volatility, as various states appear to have had problems processing and evaluating their data.
"It's a surprise that jobless claims aren't improving more quickly," Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, said via Twitter. "The increase over the last 2 weeks is moderately concerning—claims should be falling."
The minutes from the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting, released on Wednesday, had again listed the high level of unemployment as the chief reason why it won't wind down the aggressive monetary stimulus that has now been in place for over a year. While the labor market report showed the economy had created 917,000 jobs in March, overall net job destruction since the start of the pandemic is still around 10 million.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New orders for U.S.-made goods increased more than expected in October and businesses spending on equipment appeared to rebound after declining in the third...
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A measure of U.S. services industry activity unexpectedly rose in November, hitting a fresh record high as businesses boosted hiring, but there was little...
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. employment increased far less than expected in November, likely as millions of unemployed Americans remained home despite companies boosting wages,...
Are you sure you want to block %USER_NAME%?
By doing so, you and %USER_NAME% will not be able to see any of each other's Investing.com's posts.
%USER_NAME% was successfully added to your Block List
Since you’ve just unblocked this person, you must wait 48 hours before renewing the block.
I feel that this comment is:
Thank You!
Your report has been sent to our moderators for review
Add a Comment
We encourage you to use comments to engage with other users, share your perspective and ask questions of authors and each other. However, in order to maintain the high level of discourse we’ve all come to value and expect, please keep the following criteria in mind:
Enrich the conversation, don’t trash it.
Stay focused and on track. Only post material that’s relevant to the topic being discussed.
Be respectful. Even negative opinions can be framed positively and diplomatically. Avoid profanity, slander or personal attacks directed at an author or another user. Racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination will not be tolerated.
Perpetrators of spam or abuse will be deleted from the site and prohibited from future registration at Investing.com’s discretion.