Weekly Jobless Claims Rise Another 1.542 Million for Week Ending June 6th

The U.S. Department of Labor is reporting that an additional 1.542 million Americans made their initial filing for unemployment benefits during the week ending on Saturday June 6th. A decrease of 355,000 from the previous week’s revised level. Although the numbers remain high, it’s the lowest total since reaching its peak in the week ending March 28th. However, over the past eleven weeks more than 44.2 million American’s have filed for unemployment benefits. The number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment, also known as continuing claims, which lags the market by one week, declined 339,000 from 21.268 million to 20.929 million in the week ending May 30th, suggesting that downward trend in unemployment is continuing but at a slower than anticipated pace. The advanced seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage points to 14.4% for the week ending May 30th.