New weekly jobless claims took another dip last week, with the labor market’s recovery still makingheadway despite the lingering threat of the Delta variant, Yahoo Finance reported.
The Labor Department released its weekly jobless claims report on Thursday morning and here are the main metrics, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
Initial unemployment claims, week ended Aug. 7: 375,000 versus 375,000 expected, and a revised 387,000 during the prior week.
Continuing claims, week ended July 31: 2.86 million versus 2.9 million expected, and a revised 2.98 million during prior week.
New weekly jobless claims fell for a third straight period and came in below the psychologically important 400,000 level. Continuing claims also dipped to a fresh pandemic-era low below 3 million, pacing back toward pre-virus levels.
Economists have been expecting to see an improvement in the number of individuals returning to the labor force as more states roll off federal enhanced unemployment benefits. As of mid-summer, about two dozen states decided to end these benefits ahead of their official September expiration date at the national level, in a move seen as incentivizing workers to return to jobs.
As of July 24, just more than 12 million individuals were still claiming unemployment benefits across all programs. This represented a drop of more than 900,000 versus the prior week, with the decline accelerating markedly from the drop of around 200,000 during the prior week. As of the latest data, more than 8.5 million are claiming crisis-era Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation.
Click here to see the full report from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.
