As business reopenings picked up nationwide, Americans filed nearly 2 million applications for unemployment benefits last week, reflecting a slowing -- though far from a halt -- in job losses.
Initial jobless claims for regular state programmes totaled 1.88 million in the week ended May 30, Labour Department figures showed Thursday, down from 2.13 million the prior week. It was the first reading below 2 million since the coronavirus-related layoffs began en masse in mid-March. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for 1.83 million claims in the latest week.
Continuing claims -- the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits -- increased to 21.5 million in state programs the week ended May 23, compared with analyst estimates for a decline. Most states reported declines from the prior week, and the latest increase in part reflects quirks from biweekly filing rules in California, which showed an unadjusted rise of about 618,000.
US stock futures fell after the report. Separate data Thursday showed US trade in goods and services plunged in April to the lowest level in almost a decade.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims fell to 22.4 million from 22.7 million, the first decline of the pandemic.
In the week ended May 30, 36 states reported 623,073 initial claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the federal program that extends unemployment benefits to those not typically eligible like the self-employed.
Thursday’s report underscores the current dichotomy in the labor market. The layoffs are continuing -- and hitting the higher-wage workers and supervisors that escaped the initial wave of layoffs -- but at the same time, a multitude of Americans have headed back to work with varying degrees of business restrictions being eased in all 50 states.
The initial claims figure remains enormous at about nine times the pre-pandemic weekly average, but weeks of decreasing initial claims suggests the worst of the coronavirus-related layoffs is over. Even so, lingering effects from forced business closures and the pandemic itself will likely weigh on any recovery in the labor market for some time.
“Stubbornly elevated jobless claims are yet another statistic showing that labor market recovery will not be swift," Bloomberg’s economists Yelena Shulyatyeva said. "The latest claims data comes on the back of the non-manufacturing ISM survey, which showed the employment subindex barely budged in May from a record-low in April, contradicting the signal from a better-than-expected ADP employment.”
The May jobs report, out Friday, is forecast to show employers cut payrolls by 8 million, sending the unemployment rate soaring to Great Depression-like levels at 19.5 per cent. It will also show the distribution of job losses across industries. The reference week for the report is in mid-May, so last week’s jobless claims may reflect job losses not captured in the monthly employment report.
California and Florida both saw increases of more than 27,000 in initial claims filed last week; Mississippi was the only other state to show a rise, though minuscule. States seeing significant jumps in continuing claims in the week ended May 23 also included Texas, Pennsylvania, Oregon and Florida.
Georgia, one of the first states to reopen, saw its benefit rolls grow by 19,156 to 750,918.
Given the unprecedented surge of claims in recent months, many economists look to the non-seasonally adjusted figures for a more accurate read on claims. The total reported number under the federal PUA and state programs was 2.23 million last week, down from 3.21 million in the prior week. Many states that have already accepted tens of thousands of claims for the federal assistance are still showing zero claims on the national report.
Where to buy
Limited-edition art prints of The Sofa Series: Sultani can be acquired from Reem El Mutwalli at www.reemelmutwalli.com
'Shakuntala Devi'
Starring: Vidya Balan, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Anu Menon
Rating: Three out of five stars
Sholto Byrnes on Myanmar politics
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Company Profile:
Name: The Protein Bakeshop
Date of start: 2013
Founders: Rashi Chowdhary and Saad Umerani
Based: Dubai
Size, number of employees: 12
Funding/investors: $400,000 (2018)
Museum of the Future in numbers
- 78 metres is the height of the museum
- 30,000 square metres is its total area
- 17,000 square metres is the length of the stainless steel facade
- 14 kilometres is the length of LED lights used on the facade
- 1,024 individual pieces make up the exterior
- 7 floors in all, with one for administrative offices
- 2,400 diagonally intersecting steel members frame the torus shape
- 100 species of trees and plants dot the gardens
- Dh145 is the price of a ticket
MIDWAY
Produced: Lionsgate Films, Shanghai Ryui Entertainment, Street Light Entertainment
Directed: Roland Emmerich
Cast: Ed Skrein, Woody Harrelson, Dennis Quaid, Aaron Eckhart, Luke Evans, Nick Jonas, Mandy Moore, Darren Criss
Rating: 3.5/5 stars
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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Our legal consultant
Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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The biog
Born November 11, 1948
Education: BA, English Language and Literature, Cairo University
Family: Four brothers, seven sisters, two daughters, 42 and 39, two sons, 43 and 35, and 15 grandchildren
Hobbies: Reading and traveling
Our legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Key findings
- Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
- Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase.
- People who ate breakfast experienced a relative decrease in their BMI compared with “breakfast-skippers”.
- Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better.
- But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.
The Details
Article 15
Produced by: Carnival Cinemas, Zee Studios
Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa, Sayani Gupta, Zeeshan Ayyub
Our rating: 4/5