New Jobless Claims Close To Pandemic Low

New jobless claims for the week ended March 20 came in at a new pandemic low of 684,000, down 97,000 from the previous week’s revised level, according to the weekly report released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Thursday (March 25). The previous week’s level was revised up to 781,000 from 770,000. 

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 13 was 3.870 million, a 264,000 decrease from the previous week’s revised level. The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending March 6 was 18,952,795, up 733,862 from the previous week. There were 2,006,387 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2020.

For the week ended March 6, extended jobless benefits were available in 16 states — Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and the Virgin Islands.

Economists had forecast that 735,000 people would file for unemployment benefits, according to a survey by The Wall Street Journal.

This week’s decline is almost as low as the pandemic’s biggest unemployment dip in November 2020 of 701,000 new claims. 

“There are fewer people that are losing their jobs,” said Ben Ayers, senior economist at Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., per the WSJ. “That’s a great sign that things are starting to pick up again for the economy.”

This is the sixth consecutive week that initial unemployment claims held below 800,000. During the same week last year, new claims surged to over 3 million.

Last week’s BLS report was the fourth consecutive week that new jobless claims held below 800,000. New unemployment claims first dropped below 800,000 for the first time during the pandemic on Feb. 21. A record 6.867 million jobless claims were filed last year when the pandemic gripped the country in March.