New weekly jobless claims unexpectedly held above 700,000 last week to extend a rise from late March, despite other signs that rehiring has been taking place across the recovering economy.
The Department of Labor released its weekly report on new jobless claims on Thursday and here are the main metrics from the report compared to consensus data compiled by Bloomberg:
Initial jobless claims, week ended April 3: 744,000 vs. 680,000 expected, and a revised 728,000 during the prior week
Continuing claims, week ended March 27: 3.7 million vs. 3.6 million expected, and a revised 3.7 million during the prior week
New weekly jobless claims data have generally been following a downtrend over the course of 2021, though they still remain elevated relative to historical trends. At 744,000, initial jobless claims remained well above the high of 665,000 new claims filed at the worst point of the Great Recession in March 2009. And the data continue to be choppy, with each of the last two weeks’ worth of new claims unexpectedly rising off a pandemic-era low.
Click here to read the full story from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.