The U.S. economy saw yet another historically high number of first-time unemployment insurance claims filed last week, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to strain the labor market.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s weekly jobless claims, for the week ending Sept. 26, found that there were 837,000 vs. 850,000 expected. That compares with 873,000 new filings the previous week.
Continuing claims, for the week ended Sept. 19, were 11.8 million vs. 12.2 million expected and 12.8 million during the prior week.
This marked the fifth straight week that new jobless claims came in below 1 million. On a seasonally unadjusted basis, claims also declined, falling by more than 40,000 to 786,942.
But six months since the pandemic took hold in the U.S. and decimated economic activity, new jobless claims are still running far above levels from before the outbreak. As recently as February of this year, new jobless claims were coming in at a rate of around 200,000 per week.
Click here to read the full report from Emily McCormick at Yahoo Finance.
The majority of states reported improvements in unadjusted new claims last week. That was led by Florida with a decline of more 9,600 claims to about 29,000, and Texas and Georgia each also reported sizable declines in new claims. Maryland and Illinois, on the other hand, each added the most new claims, at about 2,800 and 1,900, respectively.