Another 881,000 Americans filed for first-time unemployment insurance benefits last week, with the number of individuals newly put out of work last week dipping to a pandemic-era low, but remaining stubbornly elevated on a historical basis.
That sum marked just the second time during the pandemic that new weekly jobless claims came in below 1 million. Thursday’s report, however, also represented the first time the US Department of Labor (DOL) counted new and continuing jobless claims under an updated system, which had been expected to lower the level of claims reported.
Here were the main metrics expected from the DOL’s report, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg:
- Initial jobless claims, week ended Aug. 29: 881,000 vs. 950,000 expected
- Continuing claims, week ended Aug. 22: 13.254 million vs. 14.000 million expected