Initial claims for unemployment assistance fell last week, but the total number of Americans collecting unemployment climbed to its highest level since the beginning of the year.
The number of Americans who applied for jobless benefits for the week ending April 6 fell by 11,000 to 211,000 from the previous week’s 222,000, according to statistics released by the Labor Department.
The four-week average of claims fell by 250 to 214,250.
A total of some 1.82 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits during the week that ended March 30, up by 28,000 from the previous week and the most since January.
Weekly unemployment claims have remained at historically low levels since the pandemic purge of millions of jobs in the spring of 2020.
