The United States has recorded a sharp decline in its unemployment rates, with several Americans claiming unemployment benefits have dropped to a pandemic low.
According to weekly pandemic claims report by the Labor Department, the number of jobless Americans has decreased for the first time since March 2020. This is interesting considering the country’s economy almost came to a halt last year owing to nationwide lockdowns to keep the spread of the Coronavirus at bay.
The rise in manufacturing employment in the mid-Atlantic region and increase in working hours for factory workers are stimulating the labor market prospects, as per Labor Department’s report.
However, the production rate in factories has fallen since the past four months owing to the scarcity of raw materials and sudden shift to services spending.
State unemployment benefit filings, meanwhile, fell by 29,000 to 348,000 in the second week of August. Texas recorded the lowest number of unemployment filings in the previous week followed by Kentucky, Illinois, and Michigan.
Despite this, states like Virginia, California, and New Mexico saw an increase in the number of applications. The unemployment benefits claims have dropped from 6.149 million recorded in April 2020 but remain above the 20,000-250,000 range, according to the Labor Department.
The increase in the number of vaccinated individuals has also allowed for a sharp decline in the unemployment rate in the United States. More than half of the American citizens have received their vaccination doses thus enabling them to resume their normal work life.
U.S. President Joe Biden reportedly applauded the recent progress considering that unemployment rates were quite high when he joined the office in January 2021.
With lower claims lately, there has also been robust growth in payrolls with around 943,000 new jobs created in July alone. However, the surging cases of COVID-19 cases driven by Delta Variant remain a threat to the economy of the nation.
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