US weekly unemployment claims drop for 1st time in 3 weeks

Washington, Dec 24 : The number of initial unemployment claims in the US fell to 803,000 last week, the first decline in three weeks, the Labour Department reported.
In the week ending December 19, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits decreased by 89,000 from the previous week’s upwardly revised level of 892,000, Xinhua news agency quoted a report released by the Department’s Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) as saying on Thursday.
The decline came after the number rose for two consecutive weeks amid surging coronavirus cases.
The previous week’s figure marked the highest in three months, indicating a disruption of the labour market’s recovery.
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, but the trend was reversed in the weeks ending November 14 and November 21, and then in the weeks ending December 5 and December 12.
The BLS report also showed that the number of people continuing to collect regular state unemployment benefits in the week ending December 12 declined by 170,000 to 5.3 million.