US workers file 840,000 new jobless claims as crisis total tops 63 million

By Noah ManskarOctober 8, 2020 | 8:46am | Updated

Another 840,000 American workers applied for unemployment benefits last week, the feds said
Thursday, leaving the labor market in a precarious position with coronavirus stimulus talks at a
standstill.

The US Department of Labor’s latest seasonally adjusted figures brought the number of initial jobless
claims filed amid the COVID-19 crisis to about 63.6 million — the equivalent of nearly 40 percent of the
nation’s total workforce.

Last week’s filings fell from the prior week’s revised total of 849,000 but outpaced economists’
expectations for 820,000 new claims. They also marked the sixth consecutive week with filings hovering
between 800,000 and 900,000 — still far above the Great Recession’s (мировой финансовый кризис
2009) weekly peak of 665,000.

“If the labor market is healing, it is getting better very, very slowly,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial
economist at MUFG Union Bank.

Last week’s number may have been driven down by California pausing its processing of unemployment
applications for two weeks to work through a backlog of claims and implement anti-fraud technology.

Continuing claims, which measure ongoing joblessness on a one-week lag, fell to about 10.9 million in
the week ending Sept. 26, continuing their steady decline as more unemployed workers likely exhausted
the 26 weeks of benefits that states generally provide.

Experts fear the labor market’s recovery from the spring’s massive coronavirus-fueled job losses will
falter if the government doesn’t provide another round of aid to the ailing economy.

But President Trump pulled the plug on broad stimulus negotiations with Congress this week, raising
questions about when more help will arrive and whether the economy’s recent streak of job growth will
continue.

“The stalled stimulus negotiation is a bad sign for the millions of unemployed Americans with bills to pay
and companies attempting to stave off furloughs or layoffs (временное увольнение),” said Daniel Zhao,
senior economist at Glassdoor. “The longer Americans await more fiscal support, the more likely the
pandemic’s negative effects will metastasize through the economy, resulting in a new wave of layoffs.”

https://nypost.com/2020/10/08/us-jobless-claims-840000-workers-seek-unemployment-benefits/