New weekly unemployment claims spiked far more than expected last week to reach a five-month high, as the coronavirus pandemic and stay-at-home orders weighed heavily on the labor market.
The U.S. Department of Labor released its weekly report on new jobless claims Thursday morning and here were the main results in the report, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
Initial jobless claims, week ended Jan. 9: 965,000 vs. 789,000 expected; and a revised 784,000 during the prior week
Continuing claims, week ended Jan. 2: 5.3 million vs. 5 million expected; and 5.1 million during the prior week
At 965,000, new jobless claims hit the highest level since August, ending what had been a tentative start of a downward trend in initial claims.
“The rise and level of new unemployment claims is shocking,” Mark Hamrick, Bankrate’s senior economic analyst, said in an email Thursday. “This reminds us that the economic crisis has not gone away, far from it, at a time when multiple crises have been vying for our attention.”
Click here to see the full report from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.
Heading into Thursday’s report, new initial unemployment claims were expected to dip below 800,000 for a third straight week. Initial jobless claims have stayed below the 1 million mark in every week since late August, after peaking at a record nearly 7 million in March.