US Jobless Claims Rise to 744,000
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Left
U.S. Jobless Claims Jump, Showing Choppy Labor-Market RecoveryApplications for U.S. state unemployment insurance unexpectedly rose for a second week, underscoring the uneven nature of the labor market recovery.
Initial claims in regular state programs increased by 16,000 to 744,000 in the week ended April 3, Labor Department data showed Thursday. Economists in a Bloomberg survey estimated 680,000 claims. The prior week’s data was revised up to 728,000. California and New York led states with the biggest increases in unadjusted claims.
The increase in claims shows the labor market still has a long way to go to recover...
From the Center
U.S. Jobless Claims Rose to 744,000 Last WeekWorker filings for jobless claims rose to 744,000 last week, pausing a downward trend amid other signs of recent labor-market improvement.
Initial claims unemployment benefits, a proxy for layoffs, increased by a seasonally adjusted 16,000 last week from an upwardly revised 728,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, which smooths out volatility in the figures, rose slightly to 723,750 from 721,250.
Despite the increase, claims remain close to the lowest point since mid-March of last year, when the pandemic triggered millions of layoffs. Claims are...
From the Right
Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Jump to 744,000, Much Worse Than ExpectedEconomists had forecast a decline to 680,000 from the previous week’s 719,000. This is the second consecutive week in which initial jobless claims moved up in contradiction to expectations. The upper end of the range of forecasts in the Econoday survey was 705,000.
Jobless claims can be volatile week to week so economists like to look at the four-week average. This rose by 2,500 to 723,750.
Continuing claims, which get reported with a week’s lag, fell to 3,734,000, a decrease of 16,000, in the week ended March 27.
Including new...
AllSides Picks
April 16th, 2024
April 19th, 2024