Initialjobless claims in the US increased to 745,000 last week, indicating stalledrecovery in the labour market, the Labour Department reported.
Inthe week ending February 27, the number of Americans filing for unemploymentbenefits increased by 9,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of736,000, according to a report released on Thursday by the Department's Bureauof Labour Statistics.
Thelatest claims report showed that the number of people continuing to collectregular state unemployment benefits in the week ending February 20 decreased by124,000 to below 4.3 million, reports Xinhua news agency.
Meanwhile,the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs, state and federalcombined, for the week ending February 13 decreased by 1 million to 18 million,as the country continues to grapple with the fallout of surging Covid-19 cases.
Theclaims report came one day ahead of the monthly employment report.
Accordingto earlier data from the Labour Department, US employers added just 49,000 jobsin January, after slashing downwardly revised 227,000 jobs in December 2020.