US jobless claims jump by most since 2020 after holiday drop

Applications for US unemployment benefits rose last week by the most since the onset of the pandemic, after a big drop during the Thanksgiving holiday week.

Initial claims increased by 44,000 to 236,000 in the week ended Dec. 6, according to Labor Department data released Thursday. That was the biggest jump since March 2020 and followed the lowest level of applications in more than three years in the previous week. The figure exceeded all but one estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists.

Weekly initial claims tend to be choppy around the holidays and will likely continue to fluctuate through the end of the year, but Thursday’s figures are toward the higher end of readings seen in 2025. Companies like PepsiCo Inc. and HP Inc. have laid out plans to reduce headcount in recent weeks, and nationwide layoffs in October were the highest since early 2023.

The four-week moving average of new applications, a metric that helps smooth out volatility, ticked up to 216,750 last week.