Unemployment UpSurge again
More bad jobs news: 885,000 people filed for unemployment benefits last week The US job market continues to suffer, and Thursday brought more bad news. Another 885,000 people filed for first-time unemployment benefits last week -- an increase from the week prior and higher than the 800,000 claims that economists were expecting. The latest figures, which are adjusted for seasonal factors and reported by the Labor Department, are particularly grim since last week's numbers were revised up to 862,000. And even before the revision, that week had been the highest level since mid-September. This was the fourth time in the past five weeks that first-time claims increased from the prior week. Meanwhile continuing claims, which track the total number of Americans seeking jobless benefits, fell to 5.5 million. But more than 20.6 million people have now filed for some form of government unemployment benefits in the past four weeks as of November 28. That's an increase of more than 1.6 m