The data from the Labor Department revealed on Thursday the number of applications for unemployment drop last week from the previous four weeks, but still remained huge, showing that the coronavirus' damage to the U.S. labor market remains profound.
According to the report, the initial claims for unemployment benefits totaled 3,839,000 for the week ended April 25. That brings the number of job losses over the past six weeks to 30.3 million.
Economists had expected 3,500,000 new claims last week.
Claims for the prior week were revised upwardly to 4,442,000 from the initial estimate of 4,427,000.
Meanwhile, the four-week moving average of claims fell to 5,033,250 from a revised 5,790,250 in the previous week.