Jobless Claims Up 1,000 To 427,000 in June 4 Week

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 1,000, and after an upward revision to the previous week, reached a level of 427,000 in the June 4 week — the ninth week solidly back above 400,000, according to data released by the Labor Department Thursday.

Initial claims were revised up 4,000 to 426,000 in the May 28 week. After flirting with a below-400,000 level from early February to early April, the level of claims has stayed above the 400,000 threshold since the April 9 week. Seasonal factors led to an expected decrease in unadjusted claims of 4.6% but instead saw a 4.5% decline of 16,990, to 364,507. A year earlier, the unadjusted level was 398,864.

The initial claims seasonally adjusted four-week average dropped 2,750 to 424,000 in the May 28 week, compared to the year-earlier level of 426,750.

Also in the May 28 week, adjusted continuing claims fell 71,000 to 3.676 million, the lowest since the April 16 week and well below the year-earlier level of 4.523 million. The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate slipped 1/10 back to 2.9% in the May 28 week, compared to 3.5% a year earlier. The unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.7% in the latest week.

The unemployment rate among the insured labor force is well below that reported monthly by the Labor Department because claims are approved for the most part only for job losers, not job leavers and labor force reentrants included in the monthly report.

Labor said that there were 45,515 fewer unadjusted emergency-unemployment compensation benefit claims in the May 21 week, bringing that category to 3,372,090. Extended benefits claims fell 6,593 to 618,459. The total number of persons claiming unemployment benefits in all programs unadjusted was 7,601,344 in the May 21 week, down 89,233.

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