US Initial Jobless Claims Increase

The number of Americans filing first-time unemployment claims rose 37,000 to 412,000 last week, the Labor Department said Thursday.

This marked an uptick from the previous week, which was the second time numbers were below 400,000 since March 2020.

It was, however, the eleventh time during the coronavirus pandemic that initial jobless claims came in below 700,000.

Analysts expected 359,000 for the week ending June 12. The previous week was slightly lowered by 1,000 to 375,000.

The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% in May, from 6.1% the previous month, according to the agency.

The US, however, still has 9.3 million unemployed workers after adding 559,000 jobs last month.

More than 22 million people in the world's largest economy lost jobs in March and April 2020 because of COVID-19. -