US jobless claims for the week that ended on Saturday totaled 2.4 million, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That matched the median economist estimate and raised the nine-week total to nearly 39 million.It was the seventh week in a row that claims declined but remained historically elevated.”Each week of such high claims is a disaster in its own right,” said Ian Shepherdson, the chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
The number of Americans who have filed for unemployment insurance during the coronavirus pandemic has continued to grow.
US jobless claims totaled 2.4 million last week, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That matched the median economist estimate.
The figure raised the nine-week total to nearly 39 million. That’s more than the roughly 37 million people who filed unemployment-insurance claims during the year and a half of the Great Recession.
“The coronavirus crisis continues to inflict swift and deep impacts on the labor market at a near unprecedented clip,” said Daniel Zhao, an economist at Glassdoor.