Another 205,000 American workers filed for unemployment benefits last week, matching the prior week’s jobless claims number and roughly in line with pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that the recent rise in COVID-19 infections was not driving a fresh wave of layoffs.
First-time filings for unemployment insurance—a proxy for layoffs—held steady during the week ending Dec. 18 compared to the prior week’s level, which was revised down by 1,000 to 205,000, the Labor Department said in a report (pdf).
