The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell for a second week while remaining elevated, as the labor market makes scant progress amid risks of further weakness without additional federal stimulus. Initial jobless claims in regular state programs decreased by 9,000 to 840,000 in the week ended Oct. 3, with the prior week’s figure revised higher by 12,000, Labor Department figures showed Thursday. Continuing claims, the total number of Americans on state benefit rolls, fell to 11 million in the week ended Sept. 26, a bigger-than-expected drop.
Even so, seven months into the pandemic, initial claims are still about four times the pre-virus level, and higher than the peak of the 2007-09 recession. For the latest week, economists expected initial claims of 820,000 and for continuing claims of 11.4 million, according to median estimates in a Bloomberg survey.
The report came with the same major caveat as last week: The figures from California, the most populous state, used numbers identical to the previous week because the state temporarily halted acceptance of new applications for two weeks to improve its systems and address a backlog of filings.
What Bloomberg’s Economists Say
“The stubbornly high level of claims may already be starting to reflect the large corporate job cuts announced last week. The report continued to exclude California’s numbers as the state put applications on hold for two weeks, announced on Sept. 19, to revamp its system.”
— Eliza Winger
The slight drop in new claims underscores the gradual improvement that the labor market has seen since the initial lockdowns of the pandemic eased. Even so, recent layoff announcements from companies including Walt Disney Co. and Allstate Corp. as well as multiple airlines could start showing up in the numbers in the coming weeks.