U.S. states' jobless rolls shrank for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic in a sign people are starting to return to work, even as millions more Americans filed for unemployment benefits.
Initial jobless claims for regular state programs totaled 2.12 million in the week ended May 23, Labor Department figures showed Thursday, to bring the 2 {-month total above 40 million. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 2.1 million claims.
Continuing claims, which tally Americans' ongoing benefit claims in state programs, fell to 21.1 million for the week ended May 16, the first decline during the pandemic. Those data are reported with a one-week lag. That suggests the job market is starting to rebound as businesses reopen and bring people back to work. Analysts had expected an increase in continuing claims.
While the latest initial-claims tally was down from the prior week's 2.45 million and marked the eighth straight weekly decline, it's still far above the 212,000 average of initial claims in the first two months of 2020 and the pre-pandemic record of 695,000.
