Another 861,000 Americans filed new jobless claims last week

Weekly jobless claims have ticked back up, surpassing expectations by about 90,000 filings.

The Labor Department said Thursday that 861,000 Americans filed new jobless claims last week. This was an increase of 13,000 claims from the revised level of the week before, and it was also above the 773,000 claims economists were expecting for this week, CNBC reports.

Last week, the Labor Department reported that 793,000 Americans filed new jobless claims, again a higher number than expected. But last week's number has since been revised up to 848,000. Nearly a year after the pandemic forced businesses to shutter around the United States, the number of weekly jobless claims during the crisis has still yet to fall below the pre-pandemic record of 695,000.

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"Total initial claims broke their three-week streak of declining numbers," Indeed Hiring Lab economist AnnElizabeth Konkel said, per NBC News. "The movement of this number is going in the wrong direction, and at 6.7 times higher than the pre-COVID era, magnitude also remains a problem."