The U.S. Department of Labor released its weekly report on jobless claims this Thursday, with initial unemployment claims dropping to a new low since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. This improvement has been largely spurred by the return to in-person activities as more Americans are vaccinated and returning to the workplace.
473,000 initial jobless claims were filed in the past week, well short of an estimated 490,000, which was increased to 507,000 later in the week. Continuing claims were at 3.655 million, a little over the initial estimate of 3.650 million but still short of the revised estimate of 3.700 million.
Weekly jobless claims have nearly halved since the start of the year, not to mention fallen drastically from the pandemic-high figure of 6 million claims in one week. The latest figures are still significantly higher than pre-pandemic figures, with the weekly jobless claims average in 2019 being 200,000.
Despite the vast improvement in terms of the Labor Department’s weekly jobless claims figures, employment growth remains underwhelming, with only 266,000 new jobs being added in April. To date, the economy is still 8 million jobs short of pre-pandemic levels.
