2.4M claimed jobless benefits last week, bringing total to nearly 39M since mid-March

The number of jobless workers who applied for unemployment benefits last week was 2.4 million, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Economists had projected 2.4 million new jobless claims.

The number of workers seeking aid remains historically high but has dropped considerably from the nearly 7 million claims that were filed the week ending March 28. Still, losing millions of jobs a week for weeks at a time was unheard of before the pandemic, and some economists expected that jobless claims would drop more precipitously. Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon...