US Unemployment Claims Fall Further Hitting New Pandemic Low

By Staff, Agencies

America's unemployment rate has dropped to 6 percent this March – a vast improvement on the 14.7 percent recorded nearly a year ago, in April 2020.

Fewer claims for unemployment benefits were made last week in the United States, marking a new pandemic-time low, the Labor Department said Thursday.

For the week ending 17 April, the number of claims for state unemployment benefits was 547,000, down by 7% from 586,000 claims recorded the week before.

This is only the second week in a row since March 2020 that the number of claims has stayed below 700,000, as there has been a massive shutdown of businesses which the government considers non-essential – shops, hair dressers and restaurants – because of the COVID pandemic. 

America's unemployment rate soared last year from 4.4 percent in March to 14.7 percent in April as the health crisis gained momentum.