More Americans filed for first-time jobless benefits last week despite a decline in new COVID-19 cases and the impact of Hurricane Ida subsiding.
The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose by 11,000 to 362,000 in the week ended Sept. 25, according to the Labor Department. Analysts surveyed by Refinitiv were expecting the number of first-time filings to decline to 335,000.
“Negative surprise alert: New jobless claims have risen for a third straight week,” said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate. “The latest increase confounded hopes for improvement. It appears to have been spurred, at least in part, by rising claims in the states of California and Michigan.”
Continuing claims for the week ended Sept. 18 slid to 2.802 million from a downwardly revised 2.845 million the week prior. Analysts had anticipated a decline to 2.8 million. The decrease in continuing claims came two weeks after the expiration of $300 per week in supplemental unemployment benefits.
About 5 million Americans received some form of unemployment assistance, a drop of more than 6 million from the prior week. More than 27.2 million Americans filed for benefits during the comparable week in 2020.
