US weekly jobless claims rise to highest level

Washington, Dec 11 : The number of initial jobless claims in the US increased to reach 853,000 last week, the highest since mid-September, the Labour Department reported.
The latest data published by the Department on Thursday indicated that the ongoing continued Covid-19 resurgence across the country have been disrupting the labour market and weighing on economic recovery, reports Xinhua news agency.
In the week ending December 5, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 137,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised level of 716,000, according to a report released on Thursday by the Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
In the week ending October 17, the figure dipped below 800,000 for the first time since late March, and has been largely declining in the following weeks, until the trend was reversed in the weeks ending November 14-21 amid surging Covid-19 cases.
The BLS report showed that the number of people continuing to collect regular state unemployment benefits in the week ending Nov. 28 increased by 230,000 to 5.76 million.
Meanwhile, the recipients of Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), a federal program that provides an additional 13 weeks of benefits for those who exhaust regular state benefits, dropped by 36,140 to reach 4.53 million in the week ending November 21.