Unemployment/Jobs

Associated Press/Photo by Damian Dovarganes (file)

Jobless claims plummet as retail sales jump

by Kent Covington
Posted 4/15/21, 04:14 pm

The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week tumbled to the lowest level since the pandemic began. The U.S. Labor Department reported 576,000 new jobless claims last week—a 25 percent drop from the week before.

Is there more good news? In March, employers added more than 900,000 jobs, the most since August 2020. That dropped the unemployment rate to 6 percent, less than half the pandemic peak of 14.8 percent. Sales at stores, car dealers, restaurants, and bars also jumped by almost 10 percent in March, the biggest gain in nearly a year.

Jobless claims at lowest since pandemic

by Rachel Lynn Aldrich
Posted 3/25/21, 05:20 pm

Some 684,000 Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, according to Thursday’s report from the Labor Department. That’s a sharp drop from the week before and the fewest since the COVID-19 pandemic began a year ago.

Is the economy getting better? The economy added twice the number of jobs in February as in January, a shift economists hope will become a long-term trend. But 18.9 million people are still collecting unemployment benefits, putting the U.S. unemployment rate at 6.2 percent.

Wasted aid

By the Numbers

by The Editors
Posted 2/11/21, 01:58 pm

$11.4 billion

The amount in unemployment benefits involving fraud the state of California has paid out during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the state’s Employment Development Department. That figure is 10 percent of pandemic-related benefits the state has paid. A state audit blamed protocols at the department for not safeguarding benefit payments.

$60M

The amount of cash the U.S. Justice Department has seized in investigating fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program payments.

Fed continues low interest rates

Tim Lamer | 1/27/21, 06:21 pm

Federal Reserve governors decided to keep the federal funds rate between zero and 0.25 percent during their meeting on Wednesday. They also signaled they will stick with low rates as the economy emerges from its COVID-19 struggles. “We’re a long way from a full recovery,” Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said, pointing to high levels of unemployment due to the pandemic.

Unemployment climbs back toward 1 million

Rachel Lynn Aldrich | 1/14/21, 04:50 pm

Weekly applications for unemployment benefits are still far lower than the 7 million submitted after nationwide shutdowns in the spring. But last week’s 965,000 is the highest since late August, and much higher than average numbers before the pandemic, when they typically numbered around 225,000 weekly.

Jobless claims fall

Tim Lamer | 12/31/20, 05:01 pm

New jobless claims fell to the lowest level in four weeks, according to the Labor Department. Despite economists in a Dow Jones poll expecting the number to rise to 828,000, the number of new applications dropped 19,000 to 787,000 for the week ending Dec. 26.

Joblessness numbers show improvement

Kyle Ziemnick | 11/12/20, 06:26 pm

After hovering at about 750,000 for the last two weeks, the number of new weekly unemployment applications fell to 709,000 according to the Labor Department’s Thursday report. A new spike in coronavirus cases has triggered increased restrictions in states such as Texas and New York, but the total number of people receiving jobless benefits still dropped from 7.2 million to 6.8 million.

U.S. jobless claims on the rise again

Kyle Ziemnick | 10/15/20, 04:55 pm

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.

Employers add fewer jobs in September

Kyle Ziemnick | 10/02/20, 01:39 pm

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.

Jobless claims continue to fall

Kyle Ziemnick | 9/03/20, 12:00 pm

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.

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Jobless claims plummet as retail sales jump

by Kent Covington
Posted 4/15/21, 04:14 pm