First-time claims for unemployment insurance rose to 793,000 last week, as declining Covid-19 cases provided little relief for the job market.
The total for the week ended February 6 was above the forecast of 760,000 economists surveyed by Dow Jones, but a slight decrease from the revised upward total of 812,000 in the previous week.
The pandemic era has been a long struggle for the job market to return to its former level. Non-farm payrolls rose by just 49,000 in January, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, mainly due to declining employment.
Ongoing complaints, which are one week behind the number of weekly complaints, have also fallen by 145,000 to 4.54 million.
However, the total number of recipients of benefits in all programs increased to 20.44 million due to the increase in deposits for two pandemic compensation programs, one for those who would not otherwise receive benefits and the other for those whose regular benefits they are exhausted.
Enrollment in the special pandemic programs increased by almost 2.7 million for the week ended January 23.
The programs had expired on December 26, but were renewed by Congress for 2021. Document problems have led to delays for several states, including Ohio, which saw an increase of more than 90,000 applications last week, according to unadjusted data. The new legislation provides benefits of $ 300 over what beneficiaries normally receive.
California also saw a significant increase, with 23,588 new applications. Several states recorded large declines, including Florida (-51,519), New York (-19,824) and Maryland (-19,736).
More than 10 million unemployed people remain, despite more than 12.5 million jobs recovered from the depths of the March and April 2020 pandemic.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday that the image of jobs remains “a long way from where it should be” and said the central bank is committed to keeping interest rates low until substantial progress is made.