U.S. jobless claims jump to 418,000

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) — Initial claims for unemployment insurance in the U.S. jumped to 418,000 in the week ending July 16, which represents an increase of 10,000 compared to the previous week, the U.S. Labor Department (DOL) said on Thursday.

The latest DOL report shows that the 4-week moving average was 421,250, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week’s revised average of 424,000. In addition, the department also revealed that those unemployed with unemployment insurance for the week ending July 9 was 2.9 percent, a decrease of 0.1 percent compared to the previous week’s 3.0 percent rate.

Furthermore, according to the DOL document, there was a decrease of 50,000 in the number of workers who claimed benefits under regular state unemployment programs, totaling 3,698,000 during the week ending July 9, while the 4-week moving average was 3,720,500, a decrease of 4,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 3,724,500.

Meanwhile, the unadjusted, advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, totaled 464,865 in the week ending July 16, a decrease of 9,022 from the previous week. There were 502,065 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010. The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending July 2 was 7,325,198, a decrease of 159,696 from the previous week.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending July 2 were in Puerto Rico (4.9), Pennsylvania (4.1), Alaska (3.9), New Jersey (3.8), Oregon (3.8), Connecticut (3.7), Nevada (3.5), Rhode Island (3.5), California (3.4), Arizona (3.3), and Illinois (3.3).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 9 were in New York (+20,599), Minnesota (+9,681), Michigan (+9,030), Florida (+7,544), and Ohio (+5,839) while the largest decreases were in California (-15,751), New Jersey (-7,486), Massachusetts (-3,008), Illinois (-1,399), and Connecticut (-1,316).