Unemployment: Continuing claims hit new high

[Bindare_Dundat]

Government report shows the number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week but the number filing for more than a week hit a record high.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of people filing initial claims for unemployment benefits fell last week, but the number filing for more than a week hit a fresh record high, according to a government report released Thursday.

In the week ended March 14, a total of 646,000 people filed initial jobless claims, down 12,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 658,000.

Economists had expected 655,000 new claims, according to a consensus survey by Briefing.com.

However, in a sign that more jobless are having trouble finding work, 5,473,000 people continued claiming unemployment in the week ended March 4 - the latest week for which data was available. That's an increase of 185,000 from the previous week.

"The labor market is still in disarray," said Ryan Sweet, senior economist at Moody's Economy.com. "More layoffs are ahead as businesses continue to cut costs to survive this recession."

[SAMSON123]

At some point people in america will come to know th truth about what is happening in their country. THe unemployment rate in america has to have topped 20 percent easily by now. Every week there are at least half a million people filing for unemployment. This rate has been going on for about two years now and while some people have found jobs (substantially less pay than their former jobs) it barely makes a dent in the amount who have lost their jobs. At the rate of half a million per week I would say that america has about 25 million people out of work at this point. And with a working population of about 150 million people in america that would place the unemployment figure at about 18 percent easily. This 18 percent does not include people other than those laid off in 2008 with the assumption that half of the laid off workers found new jobs. Add in 2009 with its three months weekly unemployment claims of 500,000 to 700,000 thousand and you have another couple million (lets say 5 million more added to the 25 million) just for the first three months of 2009. Those laid off in 2009 WILL NOT FIND JOBS OF ANY KIND any time soon, so that pushes the final unemployed to 30 million. which means the new rate is about 21 PERCENT!!!!!....This is DEPRESSION FIGURES...