what are jobless claims 
jobless claims are a statistic reported weekly by the u s department of labor that counts people filing to receive unemployment insurance benefits there are two categories of jobless claims initial which comprises people filing for the first time and continuing which consists of unemployed people who have already been receiving unemployment benefits jobless claims are an important leading indicator of the state of the employment situation and the health of the economy understanding jobless claimsthe nation s jobless claims are an extremely important indicator for macroeconomic analysis a weekly report produced and published by the department of labor dol tracks how many new people file for unemployment benefits in the previous week as such it is a good gauge of the u s job market for instance when more people file for unemployment benefits it generally means fewer people have jobs and vice versa investors can use this report to form an opinion of the country s economic performance however it is often very volatile data because it is reported every week the moving four week average of jobless claims is often monitored rather than the weekly figure the report is released thursday mornings at 8 30 a m et and can be a market moving event during the economic downturn caused by the spread of the covid 19 virus weekly jobless claims in the u s soared to historic levels as companies reduced their payrolls as business was halted due to social distancing more than 30 million americans filed for unemployment from mid march to april 30 2020 according to the federal reserve bank of st louis the unemployment rate hit 14 7 in april 2020 11these numbers have since improved there were 222 000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ending july 6 2024 and about 1 85 million continuing claims during the week ending june 29 2024 the unemployment rate was 4 1 as of june 2024 23