Other 793,000 American workers filed for unemployment insurance for the first time last week, seasonally adjusted, according to the Department of Labor.
Unemployment insurance claims remain stubbornly high: it was a slight decrease from the previous week’s unemployment insurance claims, which were revised upwards. But it was also more than economists expected and almost four times more complaints than in the same period last year, just before the pandemic arrived.
“The overall picture is of a recovery in the labor market that is struggling to regain strength, wrote Wells Fargo senior economist Sarah House in a note to clients.
In addition to regular state claims, 334,524 workers applied for benefits under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which provides help for temporary and self-employed workers. This number is not seasonally adjusted. It was also a slight decrease from the previous week.
Together, 1.1 million workers filed for the first time last week, without seasonal adjustments.
Continued claims, which include workers who have applied for at least two weeks of consecutive benefits, reached 4.5 million.
In the week ending January 23, the number of Americans who received some kind of government benefit increased by about 2.6 million to 20.4 million. Claimants have increased to the PUA program, as well as to the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program, which offers benefits to those who have exhausted their state aid.
It is a worrying number as the nation approaches the one-year anniversary of the start of the pandemic.
“We suspect that the increase reflects not only the solution that the job market has reached around the holidays, as Covid’s cases soared and restrictions increased, but also the eligibility extensions under these programs under the tax relief package of December, ”said House.
In short, America’s job crisis is far from over.
Long-term unemployment is still a problem in this crisis and will remain so even after many unemployed workers are able to return to their previous jobs. Many newly unemployed workers in September and October experienced unemployment for the second time during the pandemic, according to a report by the JPMorgan Chase Institute published on Thursday. The report also found that in October, almost half of the unemployed workers had been out of work for six months.
While the country awaits sufficient vaccinations to achieve collective immunity, new variants of the coronavirus are casting a shadow over hopes for a full economic reopening. For the sectors most affected, such as hospitality and travel, the emergence of these variants can interrupt the reopening plans.
“While progress in vaccination efforts prevented an increase in new layoffs in December, the rate at which unemployed workers are finding new jobs and leaving the unemployed list has not yet kept pace,” wrote Andrew Stettner, senior member of The Century Foundation, in comments sent by email.
In January, the United States economy created a modest 49,000 jobs, reversing part of the losses recorded in December. The country has continued to drop about 10 million jobs since last February. For the unemployed, things are not improving fast enough. In Washington, this means that more work needs to be done before unemployment support programs expire again in March.
Correction: an earlier version of this story incorrectly characterized the change in claims for unemployment benefits compared to the previous week. They declined last week.
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