The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefit last week is expected to fall slightly. The United States Department of Labour reports 751,000 new applications, against a revised number of 791,000 a week earlier. Economists took into account a fall to 770,000 new applications.
In recent months tens of millions of people in the United States have been using the social safety net as a result of the coronacrisis. Because large companies have announced reorganisations, new applications continue to flow in. Employment in the US is also a hot potato in the election campaign between incumbent President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden.
Since mid-March, the number of applications for benefits in the US has been above 1 million for months because of the coronacrisis. It was only in August that the number of applications dropped below that level for the first time in a week, but since then the decline has stopped.