Jobless claims reached a new record in the week ending March 21, as 3.283 million applicants filed for unemployment benefits, an increase of 91.4% from the previous week, according to data from the U.S. Department of Labor.
This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series. The previous high was 695,000 in October of 1982.
The Department of Labor indicated that the increase in initial claims are due to the impacts of COVID-19. Nearly every state providing comments cited COVID-19 impacts.
States continued to cite services industries broadly, particularly accommodation and food services. Additional industries heavily cited for the increases included the health care and social assistance, arts, entertainment and recreation, transportation and warehousing, and manufacturing industries.
The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent for the week ending March 14, unchanged from the previous week’s unrevised rate.
