New jobless claims in the U.S. rose for the first time in five weeks, amid surging COVID-19 cases.
According to the Dept. of Labor data, 742,000 Americans filed for initial unemployment benefits in the week ended Nov. 14, up from a revised 711,000 claims of the prior week. The figure is also higher than the 700,000 expected by Economists polled by FactSet.
Continuing claims stood at 6.372 million for the week ended Nov. 7, down from a revised 6.801 million the previous week, the Labor Department showed.
Meanwhile, the number of U.S. coronavirus cases topped 250,000 this week .