In just two weeks’ time, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits catapulted from just 20,000 to 243,000 which is well above economists’ predictions of unemployment claims coming in around 238,000. This new stat may come as a surprise since U.S. jobless claims as of March 2nd were reported to be at their lowest levels since March of 1973.
Even with this drastic increase in initial claim filings, many other economic indicators show an incredibly healthy labor market. The federal government is set to release a jobs report which could show 210,000 new jobs were created in February.