NEW CLAIMS JUMP

20K join jobless

The number of Americans newly seeking jobless benefits rose more than expected last week amid ongoing concerns over the surge in COVID-19 cases driven by the Delta variant, the feds said Thursday.

Initial filings for unemployment benefits, seen as a proxy for layoffs, rose to 332,000 last week, up 20,000 from the prior week’s revised level of 312,000, according to data released Thursday by the Labor Department.

Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected to see weekly new claims rise to 320,000.

“On the face of it, it is disappointing but not entirely surprising to see a slight increase in new jobless claims given the toll taken by the Delta variant,” said Bankrate senior economic analyst Mark Hamrick. “Countering that somewhat is the decline in continuing claims to a fresh pandemic-era low.”

“A year ago at this time, there were more than 800,000 new claims in the programs administered by the states. Nearly 30 million people were receiving some form of benefit in mid-September of last year,” he added.

Weekly new claims have fallen substantially from the 2020 peak of about 6.1 million new claims in a single week, but remain above prepandemic levels.

After a summer that saw new jobless claims settle at nearly double pre-pandemic levels, new jobless claims appear to be steadily falling despite the setback presented by the latest data.

The country was averaging just over 200,000 new claims per week in 2019.

Nearly 2.7 million Americans remained on traditional state unemployment benefits, the feds added.

Continuing claims fell by 187,000 from the prior week’s revised level, according to the new data. That figure stood at about 13 million at the same time last year, in the thick of the pandemic.

Those claims have fallen significantly since peaks seen in 2020, but the figure remains almost twice as high as pre-pandemic levels.

A separate economic report from the Census Bureau also released Thursday morning showed that retail sales posted a surprise gain in August despite fears over the Delta variant.

Sales increased 0.7 percent for the month, beating economists’ expectations of a 0.8 percent decline.