More Positive News Regarding South Dakota Unemployment Claims

It's Thursday and the latest unemployment numbers for South Dakota have been released.  The news is good as the number of both initial and continued unemployment claims continued to fall according to the Department of Labor's latest jobs report.

As reported by Dakota News Now, initial unemployment claims are getting closer to 'typical' pre-COVID levels. 576 initial claims were made last week, down over 300 from the prior week.

A record of over 8,000 claims in a single week occurred during the peak of the pandemic.

For reference, on an average pre-pandemic week, the state would process between 200-300 claims.

An important unemployment metric to follow is continued claims. They fell for the week ending on June 13 by almost nearly 1,500 from the previous week to 17,163. At the peak in early May, this number was over 25,000.

Nationally, the Labor Department reports the U.S. unemployment rate fell from 13.3% in May to 11.1% in June.

During the last week, 1.4 million Americans filed an initial jobless claim, a number that is still historically high.

It was also reported that the U.S. economy added a record 4.8 million jobs in June, beating analyst's expectations.