Employment has been difficult to come back to normal levels in the US. It started improving after the big surge in unemployment claims in Spring last year. But, claims have stopped declining and have been stuck above 800K for some time now and the cold weather is not helping either.

US weekly initial jobless claims and continuing claims

• Initial jobless claims 861K vs 773K estimate.
• Prior week was 793K , revised to 848K
• 4 week moving average of initial claims 833.25K vs 836.75K last week (revised)
• Continuing claims 4494K vs. 4425K estimate.  Prior week revised to 4558K vs 4545K initially reported
• 4 week moving average of continuing claims 4632K vs last week 4752.25K
• The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending February 6 were in Ohio (+92,667), California (+28,688), Georgia (+5,171), Mississippi (+3,796), and Colorado (+3,045),
• The largest decreases were in Florida (-47,430), New York (-17,407), Maryland (-16,585), Kansas (-12,376), and Arizona (-7,478).
• During the week ending January 30, 51 states reported 7,685,389 continued weekly claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits and 51 states reported 4,061,305 continued claims for Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits