US jobless claims fall below 1m for first time since pandemic began
The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits has dropped below 1m for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic began, official data today showed.
According to the US labor department, 963,000 filed jobless claims last week, down 228,000 from the week before.
The fall in claims was below estimates, with economists forecasting an extra 1.1m applications.
The report also showed that the number of people continuing to receive benefits after an initial week also fell week-on-week, from 16.1m to 15.5m.
At the height of the pandemic, in late March, 6.9m Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week.
That figure was ten times larger than the biggest previous week on record, in 1982, when 695,000 applied for such support.
Despite the fall in claims this week, there were fears from some quarters that the pace of the economic recovery in the US is now slowing down.
Last week the US government said that it had created 1.8m jobs in July, far fewer than the 4.8m jobs created the previous month.
In total, it has regained only 9.3m of 22m jobs lost between February and April.
Applicants are now also receiving less cash through the handouts, after the initial $600 a week benefit expired at the end of July.
Over the weekend, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to extend the support, but reduced the payout to $400 a week.