The US Labor Department reported today that initial jobless claims increased in the last week of February by 9,000 applications compared to the previous week, to a total of 745,000 files.
The report indicated that the seasonally adjusted projected unemployment rate was 3%, which is equivalent to the advance number of insured unemployment for the week ending February 20, which was 4,295,000, a decrease of 124,000 compared to the previous level of 4,419,000 people.
The projected number of actual initial claims under state programs was 748,078 people in the week ending February 27, an increase of 31,519 (or 4.4%) applications, compared to the previous week.
Additionally, for the week ending February 27, 53 countries reported 436,696 initial claims for unemployment assistance during the pandemic.
During the week ending February 20, the rate of progress in the unadjusted unemployment rate was 3.4%, unchanged from the previous week.
The Labor Department indicated, “Seasonal factors expected an increase of 101.951 (or 2.1%) over the previous week. In the previous year, the rate was 1.4% and the size was 2,105,457 people.”
The total number of continuous weeks claimed to receive benefits across all programs for the week ending February 13 was 18,026,537, down 1,018,763 from the previous week.
During the week ending February 13, 51 states reported 7,328,311 ongoing weekly pandemic claims (Telam).
