WASHINGTON (NewsNation Now) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits was unchanged last week at 884,000, a sign that recovery is stalling and layoffs are stuck at a historically high level six months after the coronavirus pandemic flattened.
The latest figure released by the Labor Department Thursday, the most timely data on the economy’s health, followed news last Friday of a further slowdown in employment growth in August and still far exceeds the number who sought benefits in any week on record before this year.
The 884,000 number of initial claims for state unemployment benefits was seasonally adjusted for the week ending Sept. 5. Claims dropped from about 1 million the prior week after the government changed the methodology it used to address seasonal fluctuations in the data, which had become less reliable given the economic shock from the coronavirus crisis.
www.newsnationnow.com/business/884000-americans-filed-new-unemployment-claims-last-week/