Weekly unemployment rises to highest level since May; nearly 2M jobless
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.3% for the week ending Aug. 9, unchanged from the previous week's unrevised rate, a press release said. The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Aug. 9 was 1.97 million, an increase of 30,000 from the previous week's revised level. It's the highest level for insured unemployment since Nov. 6, 2021, when it was 2.04 million.
The United States only added 72,000 jobs in July, well below the forecast amount of 115,000. Revisions to the May and June figures cut 258,000 jobs off estimates, and the unemployment rate rose to 4.2% from 4.1%.
As a result, President Donald Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner Erika McEntarfer, claiming she manipulated the BLS numbers to make him look bad. The BLS does not contribute to the weekly unemployment benefits report except to calculate the annual seasonal adjustments.
Some major companies have announced layoffs this year, including Spirit Airlines, Southwest Airlines, Chevron, Starbucks, Meta, Stellantis, Disney, Procter & Gamble, Paramount, Microsoft, Scale AI and more. Many blamed the implementation of Trump's tariffs.
The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 194,920 in the week ending Aug. 16, a decrease of 4,470, or -2.2%, from the previous week. The seasonal factors had expected a decrease of 13,875 (or -7%) from the previous week. There were 192,463 initial claims in the comparable week in 2024.
The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending Aug. 2 was 2 million, a decrease of 26,321 from the previous week. There were 1.9 million weekly claims for benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2024.
No state was triggered to initiate the Extended Benefits program during the week ending Aug. 2.
Initial claims for UI benefits filed by former Federal civilian employees totaled 635 in the week ending Aug. 9, a decrease of 2 from the previous week. There were 8,237 continued weeks claimed filed by former Federal civilian employees the week ending Aug. 2, an increase of 44 from the previous week.
There were 462 initial claims filed by newly discharged veterans, an increase of 23 from the preceding week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 6,416, an increase of 1,798 from the prior week.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending Aug. 2 were in New Jersey (2.7%), Puerto Rico (2.6%), Rhode Island (2.5%), Minnesota (2.2%), California (2.1%), District of Columbia (2.1%).
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Aug. 9 were in California (+741), New York (+630), Rhode Island (+570), Michigan (+527), and Maryland (+343).
The largest decreases were in Iowa (-704), Illinois (-334), New Jersey (-251), Pennsylvania (-158), and Oregon (-153).
Copyright 2025 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
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