New Weekly Jobless Claims Tick Up By 11,000

The number of Americans who filed new unemployment claims increased by 11,000 to 227,000 in the week ending March 5, the Department of Labor announced Thursday.

The Labor Department figure showed an increase of 11,000 compared to the week ending Feb. 26, when new claims numbered just 216,000. The week’s claims exceed predictions of economists surveyed by Bloomberg, who estimated that new claims reported Thursday would total just 217,000.

Thursday’s report comes on the heels of a strong jobs report last week, with the Labor Department announcing the addition of 678,000 jobs in the U.S.

Job openings in January remained near their record high, reaching 11.3 million while 4.3 million workers quit their jobs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced Wednesday.

The labor market continued to recover from the effects of the Omicron coronavirus variant that caused workers to call in sick or temporarily leave their jobs, The Wall Street Journal reported. Demand for workers continues to grow as the country faces some of the largest year-over-year inflation growth in decades.

The consumer price index surged 0.8% in February on a monthly basis and 7.9% on a year-over-year basis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.