For the fifth week in a row, millions of American workers applied for unemployment benefits, seeking financial relief as businesses remained closed during the coronavirus pandemic.
First-time claims for unemployment benefits totaled 4.4 million in the week ending April 18, after factoring in seasonal adjustments, the US Department of Labor said.Without those adjustments — which economists use to account for seasonal hiring fluctuations — the raw number was 4.3 million.No matter how you look at the data, the last five weeks have marked the most sudden surge in jobless claims since the Department of Labor started tracking the data in 1967. American workers filed 26.
Case in point, the seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate sat at 11% in the week ending April 11 --- the highest level recorded in the series, according to the DOL.Continued jobless claims, representing workers who filed for their second week of benefits or more, stood at nearly 16 million in the week ended April 11, after seasonal adjustments, up from 11.9 million in the prior week.
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