WASHINGTON: New applications for US jobless benefits increased for the second week in a row, according to government data released Thursday, with 885,000 applications submitted last week.
The rise in seasonally adjusted claims was much worse than expected and 23,000 above the previous week’s upwardly revised level, the Labor Department reported.
It was also the fourth week of increases over the past five, indicating layoffs are rising amid prolonged and ongoing negotiations in Congress over a new stimulus package to aid the economy’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
Claims skyrocketed after business shutdowns to stop Covid-19 started in March, and have remained above the worst single week of the 2008-2010 global financial crisis ever since.
The data for the week ended Dec 12 also showed another 455,037 people, not seasonally adjusted, filed claims under a program for workers not normally eligible.
“Recent weeks data are signalling a deteriorating trend in the labour market,” Rubeela Farooqi of High Frequency Economics said.
“The health crisis is likely to get worse after the upcoming holiday which will translate into even wider limitations on activity, business closures and mounting job losses.”
About 20.6 million people were receiving benefits through all government programmes as of the week ended Nov 28, an increase of around 1.6 million.
Congress passed the US$2.2 trillion CARES Act rescue package in the pandemic’s early days, which created a number of programmes to expand the unemployment safety net.
That included the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation programme for the long-term unemployed, and as of the end of November more than 9.2 million people were receiving benefits from that programme, up 688,793 from the prior week.
But that safety net will expire at the end of the month if Congress does not act.