U.S. Sees 23,000 New Unemployment Claims, Over 1.6M Getting Aid

Unemployment claims increased by 23,000 to 248,000 for the week ending on February 12, the Labor Department said Thursday.

Overall, less than 1.6 million Americans were collecting unemployment benefits in the week that ended on February 5, a drop of about 26,000 from the week before, the Associated Press reported.

The jump in claims came after three straight weeks of declines, which President Joe Biden touted last week as "a sign of the real progress we've made" in getting Americans back to work.

Even though claims increased, the four-week average for claims dropped by 10,500 to 243,250 in the week ending on February 12, according to the Labor Department report.

The drop marked the second straight week of declines after the number increased for five straight weeks, a rise that coincided with the rapid spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant, AP reported.

The increase in first-time unemployment claims came after the Labor Department issued a positive hiring report for the month of January. Employers added 467,000 new jobs during the month, following the combined job gains of 709,000, revised upward from an earlier estimate, in November and December last year, AP reported.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate saw a slight increase from 3.9 percent to 4 percent in January.

The earlier spread of the Omicron variant did not deter employers looking to hire new workers amid the push for economic recovery after the initial recession caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The distribution of vaccines and government spending in 2021 aided the recovery, and a record 6.4 million jobs were added last year, AP reported.

After the Labor Department reported last week that jobless claims had fallen for the third straight week, the same day the department announced that the U.S. was seeing its highest inflation rate increase in four decades, Biden heralded job growth in the U.S.

"My two top economic priorities have been to create a growing economy with more good-paying jobs, and to lower the prices Americans have faced from the global problem of inflation related to the pandemic," Biden said in a statement.

"We have seen historic success on the first priority, with the greatest year of job growth in history, Americans finding better jobs, better wages, and better benefits, along with the fastest economic growth in decades."

Biden has not commented on Thursday's unemployment claim numbers.

Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment but did not hear back in time for publication.

Update 2/17/22, 11:55 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and background.