More Than 1.3 Million Americans Filed for Unemployment Aid Last Week

Last week, more than 1.3 million Americans filed for unemployment benefits. This shows that many workers are still losing their jobs. It's happening despite the labor market starting to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown.

According to Fox Business, the latest jobless claims figures from the Labor Department covering the week ended July 4th “pushes the number of job losses since the shutdown began to nearly 50 million – or roughly 31 percent of the nation's workforce.”

The number of people receiving benefits after an initial week of aid fell by 698,000 to a little more than 18 million.

This is the 16th week in a row “that jobless claims came in above 1 million,” Fox Business reported. The report also mentioned that prior to the pandemic, the record high came at 695,000 and was set in 1982.

The report came amidst a spike in COVID-19 cases that forced some states to re-impose stricter lockdown measures.

“Unemployment claims moved lower, but in defiance of rising bankruptcies and layoffs from major retailers,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union.

“This second wave of layoffs will keep claims high and decreasing painfully slowly, and while the labor market is improving, claims show more than a million workers are losing their jobs weekly,” Frick added.

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