Another 1.5m Americans claim unemployment as states begin reopening

Small drop in new claimants comes as states begin partially reopening

Another 1.5 million Americans filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week, even as states across the US continue to ease some coronavirus pandemic measures.

The US Department of Labor announced the latest unemployment statistics on Thursday, which were 355,000 claims fewer than the previous week.

While the number of new unemployment claims have declined week on week since March, millions of American workers continue to need government support as the pandemic continues.

Over 44 million unemployment claims have been made since mid-March, when the US economy came to a sudden stop over Covid-19’s spread.

This week’s unemployment numbers are still 4.4m claims fewer than those that were made during the last week in March, when the crisis peaked in the US.

On Wednesday, the US Federal Reserve predicted as many as 15 million Americans could be unemployed until 2021, as the economy continues to recover from the impact of the coronavirus.

Almost 17 million Americans became unemployed between January and April, before that number receded from 23 million to 21 million last month.

Thursday’s labor department numbers put continued claims at 20.9 million, compared to 21.3 million last week.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday: “We remain confident that the overall economy will continue to improve dramatically in the third and fourth quarters”.

Economists, meanwhile, have begun concentrating on continued unemployment claims as an indicator of labour market conditions, as many states began reopening their economies.