Another 2.1M in U.S. file for unemployment; 10-week total over 40M

May 28 (UPI) -- The Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday another 2 million American workers have filed for unemployment benefits.

The department said a total of 2.12 million workers filed jobless claims for the week ending May 23. It also revised up last week's report by 8,000 claims. The new figure is a decrease of 323,000 from last week.

Economists expected about 2 million new claims.

With Thursday's figure, more than 40 million American workers have filed for unemployment benefits over the last 10 weeks.

Jobless claims have been on a steady decline since April when 6.6 million U.S. workers filed for new benefits for two weeks in a row. The department said the U.S. economy lost more than 25 million jobs for the month of April and unemployment was close to 15 percent.

Economists were closely watching this week's unemployment figure for the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program, which covers workers ineligible for traditional unemployment like the self-employed and contractors.

The Labor Department reported last week there had been 2.2 million claims for the program, but noted some states had yet to submit any due to delays caused by an initial flood of applications.