WASHINGTON—The Labor Department’s Thursday report revealed multiple signs of a slowdown in hiring to coincide with increasing numbers of coronavirus cases. The number of initial unemployment claims rose by 53,000 last week to 898,000, which is the largest increase since August. The economy remains more than 10 million jobs short of returning to pre-pandemic levels.

WASHINGTON—The Labor Department’s Friday report showed some positive signs as the unemployment rate fell below 8 percent for the first time since March. But the number of jobs added to the economy fell from 1.5 million in August to about 661,000 in September. Almost one-third of the new jobs came from the food and drink industry, while manufacturing accounted for about a tenth of the increase.

WASHINGTON—The number of weekly unemployment applications has dropped below 1 million for the first time since early March. The U.S. Department of Labor’s Thursday report revealed 881,000 new claims for jobless benefits last week, and 1 million fewer Americans are receiving state unemployment than in the week before. Economists say the unemployment rate is slowly returning to normal, but the level of new applications remains higher than at any time in the report’s history before the pandemic.

After two weeks of decline, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits last week rose to 1.1 million. The U.S. Department of Labor’s report on Thursday highlights the ongoing economic strain from the coronavirus pandemic five months after it started. The unemployment rate stands at 10.2 percent.

WASHINGTON—New jobless benefit claims in the United States dropped below 1 million last week for the first time since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. The government’s report released on Thursday said unemployment applications fell for the second straight week, and employers laid off fewer workers across the country.

WASHINGTON—The U.S. economy picked up 1.8 million jobs in July, the Department of Labor reported on Friday. Employment collapsed in April as states locked down in response to the coronavirus pandemic, with a loss of more than 20 million jobs. Growth slowed some in July compared to May and June, when U.S. businesses added about 5 million and 3 million jobs, respectively.

WASHINGTON—Thursday’s report from the U.S. Department of Labor showed almost 1.2 million people applied for unemployment benefits last week. Although that number represents a 15 percent drop from the week before and the lowest since the beginning of coronavirus-related lockdowns, it marks the 20th straight week more than a million Americans have applied for unemployment. During the Great Recession in the early 2000s, weekly jobless claims never topped 700,000.