First claims for unemployment insurance totaled 793,000 last week, as the falling Covid-19 cases gave little relief to the job market.
The total for the week ending February 6 was above the 760,000 forecast from economists polled by Dow Jones, but a slight drop from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 812,000.
The pandemic era has sparked a long struggle to bring the job market back to its previous level. Non-farm payrolls rose by just 49,000 in January, while the unemployment rate fell to 6.3%, mainly due to a decline in the labor force.
Persistent claims, which are a week behind the number of weekly claims, have also decreased, by 145,000 to 4.54 million.
However, the total of those receiving benefits across the program has increased to 20.44 million, due to an increase in the number of applications for two pandemic compensation programs, one for those who would otherwise not receive benefits and the other for those whose regular benefits are running out.
Enrollment in the special pandemic programs increased by nearly 2.7 million for the week ending January 23.
The programs expired on Dec. 26, but were extended by Congress for 2021. Paperwork problems led to delays for a number of states such as Ohio, which saw an increase of more than 90,000 claims last week, according to unadjusted data. The new legislation offers benefits of $ 300 over and above what recipients would normally receive.
California also saw a remarkable rise, with 23,588 new claims. Several states saw major declines, including Florida (-51,519), New York (-19,824) and Maryland (-19,736).
There are still more than 10 million unemployed workers, despite more than 12.5 million jobs being recovered since the depths of the March and April 2020 pandemic.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said on Wednesday that the job picture remains “far” from where it needs to be and that the central bank is committed to keeping interest rates low until substantially more progress is made.