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The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week jumped to their highest level in a year, which analysts are blaming on last month’s Hurricane Helene, The Washington Post reports.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless claims jumped by 33,000 to 258,000 for the week of Oct. 3. That’s the most since Aug. 5, 2023 and well above the 229,000 analysts were expecting.
Analysts pointed to spikes in jobless benefit applications across states that were most affected by Hurricane Helene last week, including Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Applications for jobless benefits are widely considered representative of U.S. layoffs in a given week, however they can be volatile and prone to revision. The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of that weekly volatility, rose by 6,750 to 231,000.
