New unemployment claims rose to 861,000 in the week ending Feb. 13, up 13,000 claims from the week prior, according to data released Feb. 18 by the Department of Labor.
The latest tally marks a four-week high and signifies that the labor market continues to suffer amid the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, Bloomberg reports.
Applications for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), the federal program that provides unemployment benefits for gig and self-employed workers, increased by 174,427 last week to more than 516,000.
The increase in weekly initial PUA claims are largely driven by large increases in California and Illinois.
Data trends reflect that unemployment claims flatlined in summer 2020 and have not recovered. It is a much slower rebound than some policymakers and economists anticipated, according to The Washington Post.
"It's fair to say that with rising caseload, the job market has stalled," Augustine Faucher, PhD, chief economist of The PNC Financial Services Group, told the Post. "The job market will get better, with a big jump in retail sales, and cases falling significantly and vaccine distribution, the jobs should start to rebound in the spring. But I think things are going to be pretty dicey in the next few months."
The COVID-19 vaccine rollout is expected to improve the labor market as benefits for many receiving unemployment benefits are set to expire in the coming months, reports Bloomberg.