By Noreen Burke
Investing.com -- The number of Americans applying for initial unemployment benefits came in at a larger than forecast 884,000 last week, indicating that labor market recovery is stalling amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Economists had forecast a decline to 846,000. The prior week's figure was revised up to 884,000 from an initially reported 881,000.
Because of a change to how seasonal adjustments are calculated made earlier in the month, today's figure is only comparable to the previous week.
The number of continuing claims, which are reported with a one-week lag to initial claims, increased to 13.385 million. The previous week's figure was also revised downwards to 13.292 million.