By Carmen Reinicke of Business Insider
- New US jobless claims for the week that ended Saturday totaled 1.2 million, the Labor Department said Thursday. That came in below the consensus economist estimate of 1.4 million.
- It marked a decline from the previous week after two consecutive increases. This week’s report brought total filings over a 20-week period to more than 55 million.
- Continuing claims, the aggregate total of people receiving unemployment benefits, totaled 16 million for the week that ended July 25.
Yet another week passed with over a million Americans filing new claims for unemployment insurance, reflecting continued coronavirus-driven layoffs and a flagging economic recovery.
New US weekly jobless claims totaled 1.2 million in the week that ended Saturday, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That came in below the consensus economist estimate of 1.4 million compiled by Bloomberg.
The weekly number is the lowest level of jobless claims seen amid the coronavirus pandemic. It also marked a decline from the previous week after two consecutive weeks of increases.
“The overall tone of the jobless claims data is the best it has been in 3 weeks or so,” said Thomas Simons, money market economist at Jefferies, in a Thursday note. “The outright level of claims has made a new post-pandemic low, and the decline is the biggest since the week of June 6, so the data does not have the same sort of “stalling out” theme that we have seen in recent weeks.” Read more from Business Insider
