Weekly secondary unemployment and pandemic claims rise in US

Initial US jobless claims were unchanged over the most recent week although secondary claims did edged higher, with some economists saying that the labour market had "stalled".

According to the Department of Labor, initial unemployment claims for the week ending on 5 September were at 884,000 (consensus: 850,000), the same as during the week before.

On the other hand, the four-week moving average, which aims to smooth out the variations in the data from one week to the next, dipped by 21,750 to 970,750.

Secondary unemployment claims meanwhile, those which are not being filed for the first time and which reference the week ending on 29 August, rose by 93,000 to 13.385m (consensus: 12.904m).

Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said Thursday's figures showed that the US labour market had "stalled".

For starters, regular initial jobless claims were steady, but claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance rose by a "hefty" 91,000, for a fourth straight increase.

Thus, combined regular and PUA claims now stood at 27.8m, against 25.7m in early August, he pointed out.

Ending the government's payroll protection programme was likely part of the reason, Shepherdson added.

"In short, the pace of gross job losses appears to be rising, consistent with the modest but clear decline in the Homebase daily small business employment numbers over the past couple of weeks.

"The need for further support from Congress for small businesses is self-evident."