US weekly jobless claims hit 1.3 million, less than economist forecasts

• US jobless claims for the week that ended Saturday totaled 1.3 million, the Labor Department said Thursday. That came in below the consensus economist estimate of 1.38 million.
• Thursday's report marked the 14th straight week of declining claims. It also brought total filings over a 16-week period to nearly 50 million.
• Continuing claims, the aggregate total of people receiving unemployment benefits, totaled 18.1 million for the week that ended June 27.

More than a million Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, signaling that pandemic-induced layoffs remain elevated even with the US economy reopening.

US weekly jobless claims totaled 1.3 million in the week that ended Saturday, the Labor Department said Thursday. That came in lower than the consensus economist estimate of 1.38 million compiled by Bloomberg.

In just a few months, the roughly 50 million unemployment claims filed during the coronavirus pandemic have far surpassed the 37 million during the 18-month Great Recession. Even though weekly claims have now consistently declined for 14 weeks in a row, the latest figure is still roughly double the 665,000 filed during the Great Recession's worst week.

"The consistently elevated UI claims show a labor market struggling to maintain its recovery as coronavirus cases soar in parts of the U.S," said Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor. "Initial claims are stalled out at a new normal of over a million new claims every week."

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Continuing claims, which represent the aggregate total of people receiving unemployment benefits, came in at 18.1 million for the week that ended June 27, a decline from the prior period's revised number.

That continung claims fell is better news than the initial claims number, said Robert Frick, corporate economist with with Navy Federal Credit Union, adding "that's a more reliable figure of the net loss of jobs."

In the week ending July 4, 49 states reported 1.04 million claims filed under Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program that expanded benefits. The total number of people claiming benefits in all state programs was 32.9 million for the week ending June 20.

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Last week, the initial claims report coincided with the June nonfarm payrolls release, which showed the US economy added a record 4.8 million jobs during the month and that the unemployment rate declined to 11.1%.

Where the jobs report showed progress made as states across the US reopen and people go back to work, stubbornly high initial unemployment claims point to underlying weakness in the labor market. The US economy has still lost a net 14.7 million jobs since the pandemic began.

Economists will continue to watch unemployment claims carefully to gauge how the labor market is being impacted by a recent spike in coronavirus cases. On Tuesday, the US reported 60,000 new COVID-19 cases, a record single-day spike, according to data tracked by Johns Hopkins University.

The growing number of cases has led some states to pause or roll back their reopening plans, which could cause further economic pain for workers and businesses. The longer the pandemic goes on, the more jobs could be on the chopping block — on Tuesday, United Airlines warned roughly 36,000 front-line employees about potential furloughs as travel demand remains depressed.

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