Jobless Claims Still High By Tony Crescenzi About this article: Initial jobless claims decreased 13,000 to 623,000 (consensus was for a reading of 628,000) in the week ended May 22 but held above the four-month low of 605,000 set three weeks earlier. The peak for the cycle was 674,000 in the week ended March 27. The current reading is in territory that suggests that while job losses are ebbing, they remain high, as a reading of 623,000 is consistent with job losses of over 500,000 a month. Early expectations for next Friday's jobs report are for a loss of about 550,000 jobs. Job losses like that could lead to increases of two- or three-tenths per month in the unemployment rate. Underscoring the idea of ebbing but still-high job losses was the April employment tally, which fell 539,000, about 140,000 below the average of the previous five months. Glaring evidence of the difficulties that workers are having in... Or, call us at 1-866-321-TSCM (8726) Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. ET. Outside the U.S. and in Canada, call 1-212-321-5200.

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