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Initial jobless claims drop to pandemic-era low

Yahoo Finance’s Emily McCormic breaks down latest jobless claims numbers.

Video transcript

MYLES UDLAND: Let's also talk quickly about initial jobless claims. This is a data series that you've been writing about for, oh, I guess what, 58 straight weeks? The numbers have been grisly for that time. But today, kind of a breakthrough on the positive side for the labor market.

EMILY MACCORMICK: Absolutely, Myles. We did see those new jobless claims coming in at a new pandemic era low this past week for the weekend and April 10th. Those coming in at 576,000. 700,000 had been expected. And a huge decline from the 769,000 new claims that we saw during the previous week.

And as you mentioned, this was a breakthrough because this was the first time in more than a year that new claims actually broke below that great recession era high of 665,000 new claims that were filed in March 2009. So definitely, a landmark moment here for the labor markets recovery.

I do want to highlight that we did see continuing claims for the week ended April 3rd. Actually tick up slightly to 3.731 million. So not completely out of the woods yet here when it comes to making up these job losses over the course of the pandemic. But again, that headline figure for new jobless claims improving much more than expected, Myles.

MYLES UDLAND: All right, Yahoo Finance's Emily McCormick with the latest on all of this morning's big economic.