US Weekly Initial Jobless Claims at 960,000 Last Week (Update)

First Record Below One Million Cases Since Mid-March After COVID-19 Outbreak

[Asia Economy New York=Correspondent Baek Jong-min] Last week, the number of new unemployment insurance claims in the United States fell below 1 million. This is interpreted as a significant turning point in the unemployment crisis caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

The U.S. Department of Labor announced on the 13th (local time) that the number of new unemployment insurance claims last week was recorded at 963,000. This is more than 100,000 lower than the Dow Jones consensus expert estimate of 1.11 million.

This figure is also nearly 230,000 lower compared to the 1.191 million claims recorded the previous week.

The weekly new unemployment insurance claims in the U.S. had surged to 6.87 million in the fourth week of March and had been declining since, but this is the first time it has fallen below 1 million.

The number of claims for unemployment benefits filed for more than two weeks also decreased to 15.486 million from 16.09 million the previous week. The expected figure was 15.898 million.

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