https://ift.tt/2ER9c3V claims for U.S. unemployment compensation remained near a five-decade- low level last week as employers retained their workers and searched for more as the United States continues its faster-than-expected economic recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Labor Department said Thursday that 206,000 jobless workers made first-time claims for compensation, up 18,000 from the revised figure of 188,000 the week before, which was a 52-year low.
Even with the increase in claims last week, the figures from the last three weeks were well below the 256,000 total in mid-March of 2020 when the pandemic first swept into the country and employers started laying off workers by the hundreds of thousands.
The Labor Department said the four-week moving average was 203,750 — the lowest since November 1969.
In a statement, U.S. President Joe Biden boasted of the recovery. “When I took office, over 18 million were receiving unemployment benefits; today only 2 million are,” he said. “We’ve added nearly six million jobs this year – the most of any first-year president in history. That’s good news for the millions of families who are back to work and will have a happier holiday season this year.”