New York (CNN Business)First-time claims for unemployment benefits fell below a million again last week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. This happened before — in early August — before claims reversed course and bounced higher.
Another 881,000 Americans filed initial claims for benefits last week on a seasonally adjusted basis. Normally, the fact that so many people filed for unemployment last week would not be a reason to celebrate. But these are not normal times, and this is another sign that the jobs market is gradually recovering.
Continued jobless claims, which count people filing for benefits for at least two weeks in a row, also offered some good news: It stood at a seasonally adjusted 13.3 million, falling by more than 1 million from the prior week.
However, a wonky aspect in the report makes it tricky to track the progress of the jobs recovery: The Labor Department changed its methodology for seasonal adjustments starting with this report. Usually, seasonal adjustments are designed to smooth the data and make it more easily comparable. But during the pandemic’s unprecedented effect on the labor market they have added some noise to the data.
— cnn business news
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