Jobless claims Up by 1.877 million, total unemployment level worse than expected

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been very tough on the economy, the state of employment in the U.S. has really been hit hard. On Thursday the U.S. Labor Department released its weekly jobless claims report which reported an additional 1.877 million Americans who filed for unemployment benefits in the week ending May 30, exceeding economists’ estimates for 1.843 million initial jobless claims during the week.





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Economists surveyed by Dow Jones were expecting 1.775 million new claims. The total nevertheless represented a decline from the previous week’s upwardly revised total of 2.126 million. Filings under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program totaled 623,073. This was the first time claims came under 2 million since the week ended March 14. Over the past 11 weeks, more than 42 million citizens have filed for unemployment insurance.

"The continued rise in jobless claims is very worrisome because it means people remained unemployed and didn't return to work," according to Mark Tepper, president and CEO of Strategic Wealth Partners, in an e-mail Thursday. "This is a terrible number, but weekly jobless claims have been on the decline over the past few weeks, as states across the country start to ease the coronavirus-driven lockdowns."

Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program claims, which includes people who are previously ineligible for unemployment insurance such as self-employed and contracted workers, fell significantly to 623,073 in the week ending May 30 from the prior week’s 1.3 million.

California has recorded the highest number of jobless claims at an estimated 230,000 on an unadjusted basis, up from 203,000 in the previous week for the month of May. Florida had 206,000, up from 175,000. Georgia reported 148,000 and Texas had roughly 107,000 jobless claims.

The weekly initial jobless claims report comes on the heels of the ADP private employment report and ahead of the highly-anticipated May jobs report, which is set to be released Friday morning. ADP’s report showed that the U.S. economy lost 2.76 million private payrolls in May, which was significantly fewer than estimates for 9 million job losses during the month.