Unemployment filings in U.S. fall to 281,000; another COVID-19 era low

Oct. 28 (UPI) -- The Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday that there have been a little more than 280,000 new unemployment claims, a level that's slowly approaching a milestone low.

The department said there were 281,000 new jobless claims last week. That's the fewest since 256,000 filings in March 2020.

Thursday's figure was a decrease of 10,000 filings over the previous week.

The department said there were 2.24 million continuing claims last week, which lag initial filings by a week.

By comparison, there were about 1.8 million continuing claims in early March of last year when the COVID-19 pandemic first began to severely impact the U.S. workforce.

The department said the most new filings were seen in California, Tennessee and Florida. The largest decreases in claims were reported in Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania.