Unemployment claims are 'trending in the wrong direction' and are back above 1 million

Weekly unemployment claims recently dipped below one million for the first time in months, but they didn't stay below that threshold for long.

The Labor Department on Thursday said that 1.1 million Americans filed new unemployment claims last week, The Wall Street Journal reports. There were 971,000 new claims a week prior, which was the first time since March the number of claims had been below one million.

The rise in new unemployment claims came as a surprise after economists were expecting the number to decline to about 923,000 this week, CNBC reports.

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CNN's Christine Romans noted that according to this latest report, 28.5 million Americans are "receiving some sort of government unemployment assistance," adding that the unemployment claims are "trending in the wrong direction," while The Washington Post's Heather Long described these latest numbers as a "red flag that layoffs remain high."