Weekly US Jobless Claims Again Exceed 1M

For the 17th consecutive week, the number of Americans who filed for unemployment benefits exceeded 1 million.

The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) reported Thursday (July 16) that another 1,300,000 Americans filed initial claims for jobless benefits for the week ending July 11.

The total number of seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims fell by 10,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 1,310,000 claims.

Economists had expected applications for jobless benefits to be about 1.2 million. But last week’s unemployment claims numbers are down for the 15th straight week.

“The risk of a dip lower in the economy has increased as more states adopt policies to combat the virus spread,” economists at Bank of America said in a research note before the numbers were released. “Until the country manages to get the virus under control, the recovery is likely to be one of fits and starts.”

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 4 were in Texas (20,506), New Jersey (19,410), Maryland (10,568), Louisiana (9,441) and New York (3,906).

DOL said Texas was hit hard in nearly every sector including layoffs in the manufacturing, accommodation and food services, transportation and warehousing, wholesale trade, entertainment, professional, scientific, and technical services, real estate and healthcare.

States that saw the largest decrease in claims were in Indiana (22,725), Florida (17,429), California (12,571), Georgia (12,325) and Oklahoma (8,982).