Department of Labor

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell slightly last week to 751,000, a still-historically high level that shows that many employers keep cutting jobs in the face of the accelerating pandemic

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits fell last week to 751,000, the lowest since March but a figure that remains historically high and indicates the viral pandemic is still forcing many employers to cut jobs

With coronavirus cases on the rise in Massachusetts, food manufacturers and distributors appear to have suffered a higher number of COVID-19 outbreaks in recent weeks than other types of businesses, according to state records obtained by the Business Journal through a public records request. For some of the largest COVID-19 workplace clusters, the outbreak does not seem to have been…

New unemployment benefit claims are rising to levels unseen in recent U.S. history as a result of coronavirus concerns

The U.S. Department of Labor says jobless claims spiked to 281,000 last week after companies began layoffs to deal with issues stemming from the coronavirus pandemic.

President Donald Trump rattled off several false claims in his Nov. 12 speech to the Economic Club of New York, in which he contrasted the supposedly “bleak” outlook at the end of his predecessor’s term with an exaggerated portrayal of the economy’s strong performance during his own tenure.

A solid October jobs report on Friday spotlighted the surprising durability of the U.S. economy in the face of persistent trade conflicts and a global slowdown. The economy managed to add 128,000 jobs last month even though tens of thousands of workers were temporarily counted as unemployed because of the now-settled strike against General Motors. What’s more, the government revised...

A Maine company has been bought out and layoffs are on the not-so-distant horizon. Olympia Sports, an athletic supply retailer in Westbrook, Maine, announced this week it will shutter dozes of stores across New England and beyond.

Olympia Sports, a Maine sporting goods retailer, was bought out and is set to shutter stores.

The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 3.5% in September, the lowest level in nearly five decades, even though employers appeared to turn more cautious and slowed their hiring. The economy added a modest 136,000 jobs, enough to likely ease worries that an economy weakened by the U.S.-China trade war and tepid global growth might be edging toward a potential recession....

Eugene Scalia, son of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was confirmed by the Senate on Thursday to head the Department of Labor.

The U.S. job market isn’t quite as strong as originally believed — with revised figures showing that the economy had 501,000 fewer total jobs this March than initially reported. The Labor Department said Wednesday that nearly two-thirds of the downward revision came from the retail and leisure and hospitality sectors, the industries most associated with consumer spending. These preliminary revisions...

U.S. employers sustained a steady pace of hiring in July, adding 164,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate remained at 3.7% for a second straight month, close to a 50-year low. It’s a reassuring sign for an economy that’s endured a series of ups and downs.

Job gains in the services sectors continued to rocket higher in April as hiring remained hot for computer system designers, social workers and health-care professionals. Manufacturing, on the other hand, posted a third straight month of lackluster employment figures. CNBC studied the net changes by industry for April jobs based on the data from the Labor Department contained in the...

U.S. companies in April added the most jobs in 9 months, a sign that hiring remains strong amid solid economic growth. Payroll processor ADP said Wednesday that businesses hired 275,000 people last month, up from just 151,000 in March. That’s a much higher number than economists forecast for Friday’s government jobs report. Current projections call for the Labor Department to...

The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits dropped to the lowest level in nearly half a century. The Labor Department says claims for jobless aid fell by 5,000 last week to 192,000, lowest since September 1969. The four-week average, which is less volatile, dropped by 6,000 to 201,250, lowest since November 1969. Weekly claims have been at historically low...

The pace of hiring in the United States fell last month to its lowest point in nearly a year and a half, a surprise drop likely reflecting harsh weather and other temporary factors that led most economists to see the slowdown as a temporary blip. Employers added just 20,000 jobs, down from a blockbuster 311,000 in January. Even with February’s...

U.S. employers posted the most open jobs in December in the nearly two decades that records have been kept, evidence that the job market is strong despite several challenges facing the economy. The Labor Department said Tuesday that job openings jumped 2.4 percent in December to 7.3 million. That is the most since records began in December 2000. It is...

Striking teachers picketed outside of schools and marched through Denver’s streets Monday as car horns blared in support of the latest U.S. walkout amid a swell of educator activism in at least a half-dozen states over the last year. Just over half of the 4,725 teachers called in absent for Denver’s first strike in 25 years. Some students crossed picket...