Unemployment Claims Level Off as New Job Losses Offset by Hiring

The number of Americans receiving continuing unemployment benefits has held near 20 million in recent weeks

The number of workers seeking new unemployment benefits has plateaued at a historically high level, showing that many Americans are still losing their jobs amid a broadly healing labor market.

Weekly jobless benefit applications, historically a proxy for layoffs, have held between 1 million and 2 million since late May, and economists expect the figure will remain in that range again for the week ended July 4. The Labor Department will release fresh data...