Thursday, January 13, 2011

New jobless claims post biggest jump in 6 months

No worry's, the “summer of recovery” will soon be upon us.
(Reuters) - U.S. jobless claims jumped unexpectedly last week to their highest level since October, suggesting the labor market is still in a rut despite signs of improvement in the economy.

The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits rose to 445,000 from an upwardly revised reading of 410,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said on Thursday. It was the biggest one-week jump in about six months, confounding analyst forecasts for a small drop to 405,000.

A Labor Department official noted the rebound occurred following the holidays, which may have hindered reporting of new claims and created a backlog.

Continuing claims retreated sharply to 3.88 million from 4.13 million, a potentially encouraging sign. However, the total number of Americans on benefit rolls, including extended benefits under emergency government programs, jumped to 9.19 million from 8.77 million.

1 comment:

Scoremore said...

Weekly jobless claims up more than expected.the number of workers continuing to filing claims for unemployment benefits
The numbers were a bit of a shock to the financial markets. After all, just a week ago, everyone was talking about the downward trend being a good thing. A chief economist from IHS Global Insight was just one of a myriad talking optimism on Bloomberg last week.