By Natalie DeCoste

Despite more people getting vaccinated and other signs of economic upturn, jobless claims have unexpectedly risen.

Filings for initial jobless claims came in at 412,000 for the week ending June 12, an increase of 37,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 375,000.

The claims once again went above the 400,000 mark for the first time since May. This turn for jobless claims was a surprise as economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected 360,000 new claims for last week.

“The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending June 5 were in Illinois (+5,715), Ohio (+2,296), Delaware (+1,720), and Tennessee (+1,159), while the largest decreases were in Pennsylvania (-23,633), California (-19,120), Oklahoma (-3,788), Texas (-3,299), and New Jersey (-2,985),” reported the Department of Labor.

The four-week moving average for jobless claims, which helps stabilize volatility associated with the figure, reached a new pandemic low of 395,000 even with the increased claims. This figure is the lowest average level since March 2020, before the pandemic first took hold in the U.S. and rocked the economy.

“The pace of layoffs and new [unemployment] claims is definitely starting to normalize, but the number of American workers who are receiving unemployment benefits still remains extremely high,” said Marianne Wanamaker, an associate professor of economics at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

Continued claims, which lags behind initial claims, saw a decrease to its figure. The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all unemployment programs for the week ending May 29 was 14,828,950, decreasing 559,873 from the previous week. This change is a significant decrease from what was seen during a comparable week in 2020 when there were 30,170,225 weekly claims filed for benefits in all programs.

Some of the decrease in continued claims may come from the fact that states are discontinuing pandemic-related unemployment programs that extended benefits. The Labor Department reported that extended unemployment benefits were available in just 12 states during the week ending May 29.

Rollbacks on even more pandemic-related unemployment benefits, such as those for self-employed people, will be seeing even more rollbacks in the coming weeks in months. Roughly half of states have announced that they will pull back on part or all of the federally backed benefits in the coming weeks. These programs were slated to expire in early September, but it seems the states are pushing up the deadline.

Economists are not reporting massive concerns with the slight increase in initial jobless claims.

“[Jobless claims] rising a bit should not be cause for concern yet. The big picture is that while we are not back to a ‘normal’ level yet of initial claims, they are no longer astronomically high,” said AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at job search site Indeed.com.