Initial weekly jobless claims jumped to almost 230,000 during the first week of March, surpassing economists’ expectations.
- The number of first-time unemployment claims rose by 11,000 to 227,000 during the week ended March 5. Economists polled by FactSet were expecting jobless claims to rise to 216,000.
- Even though figures were slightly higher than the prior week, claims were at 734,000 the corresponding week, a year ago.
- New York, California, and Kentucky posted the largest increases in claims for the week.
The number of people already collecting jobless benefits rose by 25,000 to 1.49 million in the week ended February 26. The continuing claims have returned to pre-pandemic levels and are extremely low.
DXY up +0.34%, EUR USD down -0.52%
Source: US Department of Labor
