Some 900,000 Americans filed for jobless benefits last week, a little less than the previous week but still near the five month high, US Labor Department said in a news release on Thursday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 21st January, 2021) Some 900,000 Americans filed for jobless benefits last week, a little less than the previous week but still near the five month high, US Labor Department said in a news release on Thursday.
"In the week ending January 16, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 900,000," the release said.
The Labor Department revised down claims in the previous week to January 9 to 926,000, from a previously published 965,000. That brought the latest week's claims down by 26,000, or 2.8 percent.
The filings in the previous week were the highest since the 1,006,000 claims received during the week ended August 22, putting the number at a near five-month high.
"The data is a bit better than last week's sharp spike higher and the prior month was revised lower, but 900,000 is still a large number," Greg Michalowski, analyst at FX Live.com, said on Thursday.
Continuing weekly claims, reported with a one-week lag but sometimes considered a better gauge of the labor market, slid to 5.05 million for the week ended January 16 from a previous 5.18 million. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, stood at 3.6 percent, unchanged from the previous week.
