93.9 The Eagle – The News and Talk of Columbia, MO
Missouri weekly initial unemployment claims went up last week.
The state labor department reports 10,485 claims in the week ending Aug. 29. That is up 13% from last week. It is a historically high number, but one of the lower weeks for claims since the coronavirus pandemic started affecting the economy in mid-March.
More from The Associated Press:
The number of laid-off Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell to roughly 880,000 last week, a sign of possible improvement but evidence that the viral pandemic keeps forcing many businesses to slash jobs. The latest figures, released Thursday by the Labor Department, suggest that nearly six months after the eruption of the coronavirus, the economy is still struggling to sustain a recovery and rebuild a job market that was devastated by the recession. All told, the government said that 13.3 million people are continuing to receive traditional jobless benefits, up from 1.7 million a year ago.
