US Unemployment Claims Fall Below 1 Million After 5 Months

US unemployment claims fell below 1 million for the first time since the second week of May

Written by: Skerdian Meta • Thursday, August 13, 2020 • 1 min read

• Last updated: Thursday, August 13, 2020

The trend in unemployment claims is bearish

Unemployment claims surged in the US in the third week of March, increasing above 3 million, as the country shut down and then jumped higher to above 6 million for a coupe of weeks. Claims have been cooling off since then, but they have remained still quite high, despite the decline. Last week, jobless claims fell below 1 million for the first time since mid March, so the situation is getting better, but claims are still pretty high.

US Weekly Initial Jobless Claims Report

Weekly initial jobless claims 963K vs 1100K expected
Prior was 1186K (revised to 1191K)
Continuing claims 15486K vs 15800K expected
Prior continuing claims 16090K
PUA claims 489K vs 656K prior
Full report

The total number of people claiming benefits for all programs was 28,257,995, down 3065K from the prior week. This is the first time initial jobless claims were below 1 million in 21 weeks.

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Skerdian Meta

Lead Analyst

Skerdian Meta Lead Analyst. Skerdian is a professional Forex trader and a market analyst. He has been actively engaged in market analysis for the past 11 years. Before becoming our head analyst, Skerdian served as a trader and market analyst in Saxo Bank's local branch, Aksioner. Skerdian specialized in experimenting with developing models and hands-on trading. Skerdian has a masters degree in finance and investment.