On top of that, 436,696 workers applied for Pandemic Unemployment benefits, which are available to people like the self-employed or gig workers.
Together, first-time jobless claims stood at 1.2 million without seasonal adjustments last week.
In Texas claims rose by nearly 18,000 applications, likely reflecting the recent winter storms that devastated the state.
Continued benefit claims, which count applications submitted for at least two weeks in a row, stood at 4.3 million in the week ended February 20, down from the week before.
More than 18 million workers received benefits under the government’s various programs in the week ended February 13.
But the expectations are widely different, ranging from a 100,000 jobs lost to 500,000 jobs gained, according to Refinitiv.
“We expect the US jobs recovery to show some encouraging progress in February,” said Lydia Boussour, lead US economist at Oxford Economics.
Improvements in health and economic conditions along with the rollout of coronavirus vaccines and the reopening of the Paycheck Protection Program for businesses will help job creation, she said. Meanwhile, the winter storms that haunted much of the nation in February are expected to have a small affect on the jobs situation, according to Boussour.
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