The number of new applications for unemployment benefits last week dropped slightly to 751,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday, marking the tenth straight week that jobless claims were below a million.
Thursday’s release indicates that the labor market is healing, but slowly, according to Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for Bankrate.
“The U.S. economy continues to mount a slower recovery compared to the stronger restoration of employment seen earlier this year. Even as employers add or restore jobs, there is still ongoing job loss reflecting the depth and duration of the downturn now in its 33rd week,” he said.
Weekly claims had soared as high as 6.9 million in the spring as the coronavirus forced economic disruption. Claims remained above a million for the next 21 weeks, except for one week.
Jobless claims are now roughly two-thirds below the levels seen in March but remain historically high. There were over 22 million claims, including continuing as well as new applications for the week ending Oct. 10. That number was roughly 1.4 million in the comparable week for 2019.
Additionally, states reported 362,883 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, a new category of eligibility created by the March CARES Act that provides benefits for workers sidelined by the pandemic, such as gig workers whose work dried up. Altogether, then, around 1.1 million workers filed for benefits last week.
Another troubling sign is that claims increased for the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which gives an additional 13 weeks of benefits to those who have used up their initial 26 weeks. It increased by more than 270,000 last week, and now, roughly 3.9 million jobless workers were on extended benefits for the week ending Oct. 17.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Oct. 24 were in Illinois, 6,190; Michigan, 5,442; Massachusetts, 2,483; Minnesota, 1,848; and Connecticut, 1,621.
The states with the largest decreases in claims for the same week were Texas, California, Florida, New York, and Louisiana. All states with decreasing numbers had been coronavirus hot spots earlier in the year.
Thursday’s report comes a day before the Labor Department will announce October’s unemployment rate and how many jobs were added to payrolls that month. The jobless rate is expected to dip to 7.7%, from 7.9% in September, with 530,000 workers being hired, according to the Wall Street Journal.
