U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly rise, overall trend points lower
Businesses have reopened at a rapid clip, boosted by a rollback in restrictions now that more than 155 million Americans have been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus. Still, the job market rebound has been anything but steady despite recent employment gains.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 373,000 for the week ended July 3, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast 350,000 applications for the latest week.
“Through some of the noise in the data it still looks like the trend for filings keeps moving lower over time,” said Daniel Silver, an economist at JPMorgan in New York.
Lack of affordable child care and fears of contracting the coronavirus have been cited for keeping workers, mostly women, at home. There were a record 9.2 million job openings at the end of May and 9.5 million people were officially unemployed in June.
The number of people continuing to receive benefits after an initial week of aid declined 145,000 to 3.339 million during the week ended June 26, the report of the claim showed. There were 14.2 million people receiving benefits under all programs in late June, a fall from 14.7 million earlier in the month.
The data comes on the heels of an encouraging monthly jobs report from the Labor Department last Friday, which showed U.S. companies hired the most workers in 10 months in June.
(c) Reuters
News.Az
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