Weekly US jobless claims reach 884,000 as layoffs persist
The number of people filing for unemployment benefits in the US is continuing to rise, according to new data from the US Labor Department.
Last week there were 884,000 initial claims, unchanged from the previous week’s revised level.
Last week, the number of claims fell to the lowest level since the coronavirus pandemic began, although the methodology changed somewhat. The level was revised up by 3,000 from 881,000 to 884,000.
Although claims have dropped from the record 6.8m at the end of March, at the start of the pandemic, redundancies persist across industries as cases continue to rise.
The insured unemployment rate edged up 0.1 per cent to 9.2 per cent for the week ending 29 August.
The new figures come after the US Jolts survey yesterday which showed a rise in job vacancies to 6.6m in July. But the pace of hires fell from 6.97m for June to 5.79m in July.
There have been signs of economic recovery as businesses reopen and consumers start to spend again. But there are still scars from the disastrous second quarter, when the economy collapsed by 31.7 per cent.
“The U.S. headline number was bang inline with the expectations but the continuing claims rose. The mixed bag of economic data confirms that there is gradual recovery for the U.S. economy” said Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Ava Trade.
“However, things are not improving and this is the reason that we are seeing improvement in the gold price. It is likely that the bottom is in for the gold price and it is likely to continue to move higher.”