"During the week ending March 21, the increase in initial claims are due to the impacts of the COVID-19 virus," noted the DOL in its press release.
Further details of the report showed that Continuing Jobless Claims for the week ending March 14 rose to its highest level since April 14, 2018, at 1,803,000.
Wall Street opens decisively higher despite record Jobless Claims figures.
After closing the previous two days with strong gains, Wall Street's main indexes opened sharply higher on Thursday as investors seem to have shrugged off the huge leap in weekly Initial Jobless Claims reading.
US Jobless Claims: Off the charts – RBC Economics.
US jobless claims were off the charts at 3.28 million last week.
USD Jobless Claims: We are now using millions – BMO. »