Aug. 6 (UPI) -- Another 1.2 million U.S. workers have filed for new unemployment benefits, the Labor Department said in its weekly report Thursday.
The report listed 1,186,000 new claims for the week ending Aug. 1, a decrease of 249,000 from the previous week. It listed the unemployment rate at 11%.
Thursday's report also revised up last week's claims by 1,000.
Most economists expected about 1.4 million new claims.
The department said there are 16.1 million continuing claims, which lag initial claims by a week.
Thursday's figure marks the 20th week in a row of at least 1 million new claims, and comes one day before the department issues its monthly jobs report for July.
A private assessment by ADP and Moody's Analytics on Wednesday said the U.S. economy added just 167,000 non-farm payrolls for the month of July.
Most economists expect the government report will show an addition of about 1.6 million jobs, which would be a sharp decline from nearly 5 million added in June.