Jump in Jobless Claims Suggests Labor Market Worse than July

Markets were hoping that new claims for unemployment insurance would hold steady or even see modest improvement to the 550k level, but job losses just aren’t letting up as summer comes to a close. 

First-time claims for jobless benefits increased for the second straight week, moving up by 15k last week to 576,000, and the prior week’s figures were revised up by a few thousand to 561,000. Any number higher than 360k indicates the labor market is bleeding, so the figures suggest that companies continue slash payrolls rapidly to cut costs.

The report was bad on both fronts, as the number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits increased by 2,000 to 6.241 million for the week ending August 8. The record high of 6.904 million was seen in late June.

“The painful job losses continue, but â€