U.S. Jobless Claims Up 30K To 778K in Nov. 21 Week -- Update
November 25 2020 - 9:16AM
Dow Jones News
By Sarah Chaney Cambon
Jobless claims rose for the second straight week to 778,000, a
sign the nationwide surge in virus cases was starting to weigh on
the labor-market recovery.
Worker filings for unemployment insurance are down sharply from
a peak of nearly seven million in late March. But they remain
higher than in any previous recession--the prepandemic peak was
695,000 in 1982--for records tracing back to 1967.
Claims filings can be more volatile around the holidays, due to
work week changes that can cause seasonal-adjustment anomalies. The
four-week moving average, which smoothes out weekly variation,
increased by 5,000 to 748,500.
Increases in jobless claims were widespread across states. Some
of the states with sharp increases in virus cases, including
Minnesota, Ohio and Illinois, saw a large rise in claims last
week.
Write to Sarah Chaney Cambon at sarah.chaney@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 25, 2020 09:01 ET (14:01 GMT)
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