For the week ended June 6, the Labor Department reported that Americans made initial jobless claims of 1.542 million, down from the 1.877 million claims for the week earlier. The figure is close to the 1.5 million claims anticipated by economists polled by FactSet.
More than 47 million claims for unemployment benefits have been made since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in March, a record figure in the history of the US labor market.
Seasonally adjusted continuing claims ( the number of people who have already filed an initial claim and who have experienced a week of unemployment and then filed a continued claim to claim benefits for that week of unemployment) was 20.929 million for the week ended May 30.