Another 1.2 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week

In recent weeks the recovery from America’s jobs crisis seemed to have hit a roadblock, but last week’s claims for first-time unemployment benefits fell more than expected.

That said, another 1.2 million Americans filed for initial jobless benefits last week on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Department of Labor reported on Thursday. That was down from the prior week’s 1.4 million claims.

Not adjusting for seasonal factors, just under 1 million people filed initial unemployment claims last week. Normally seasonal adjustments help smooth data, but the huge numbers during the pandemic have distorted it.

First-time jobless claims peaked at 6.9 million in the last week of March and then declined for four months. But around mid-July, they reversed directions and rose again.

That’s not a good look for a labor market that desperately needs to recover after millions of workers were displaced by the pandemic. But last week offered hope that claims could head lower once again.

Rising Covid-19 infections across the country have stalled the reopening of the economy and have made it harder for people to return to work. In addition, money from government’s paycheck protection program, which allowed companies to hire back workers, is running out.

Continuing claims for benefits, which count people who have applied for government aid for at least two weeks in a row, came in at 16.1 million on a seasonally adjusted basis, more than 800,000 claims lower than the week before.

And those numbers are only regular jobless benefits and don’t include the pandemic assistance the government rolled out over the past months.

Last week, 656,000 people in 51 states filed initial claims to seek pandemic unemployment assistance, down from 909,000 claims in the week before.

That said, continued claims for pandemic assistance were little changed around 13 million.

This is a developing story. It will be updated