New applications for regular unemployment benefits fell in late May for the fourth week in a row as the U.S. economic recovery from the waning coronavirus pandemic induced companies to hire more workers.
Initial jobless claims sank 38,000 to 406,000 in the week ended May 22, the government said Thursday. That’s the fewest number of requests for compensation since the onset of the pandemic nearly 15 months ago.
New requests for compensation are down sharply from about 900,000 in early January. The number of new applications had been running in the low 200,000s before the viral outbreak last year, however.
Another 93,546 applications for jobless benefits were filed last week through a temporary federal relief program. These claims had peaked last year at well over 1 million a week but have now dwindled to a pandemic low.
The number of people already collecting state jobless benefits, meanwhile, fell by 96,000 to a seasonally adjusted 3.64 million in the week ended May 15. These are known as continuing claims.
Some 5.2 million people who have exhausted state compensation were also getting extra federal benefits. The federal program ends in September.
Altogether, the number of people reportedly receiving benefits from eight separate state and federal programs totaled 15.8 million as of May 8. These claims had topped 30 million early in the crisis.
Fewer than 2 million people were getting benefits before the pandemic erupted.