WASHINGTON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- Initial jobless claims last week in the United States rose to 770,000, indicating the disruption in the labor market recovery, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
In the week ending March 13, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits increased by 45,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of 725,000, according to a report released by the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The latest claims report also showed that the number of people continuing to collect regular state unemployment benefits in the week ending March 6 decreased by 18,000 to reach 4.1 million.
Meanwhile, the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs -- state and federal combined -- for the week ending Feb. 27 decreased by 1.9 million to 18.2 million, as the country continues to grapple with the fallout of the pandemic.
The jobless claims report was released one day after the U.S. Federal Reserve said it decided to keep its benchmark interest rate unchanged at the record-low level of near zero.
At a virtual press conference Wednesday afternoon, Fed Chairman Jerome Powell noted that the economic recovery remains "uneven and far from complete," and the path ahead remains "uncertain."
In the labor market, conditions "have turned up" recently, but employment is still 9.5 million below its pre-pandemic level, he noted, adding that unemployment rate remains elevated at 6.2 percent in February.
Looking ahead, the median projection of unemployment rate by Federal Open Market Committee participants is 4.5 percent at the end of this year and moves down to pre-pandemic level of 3.5 percent by the end of 2023, according to the Fed's latest economic projections. Enditem
