Jobless Claims Rose Last Week

By Matt Grossman

More Americans filed for initial jobless benefits last week, according to the Department of Labor, raising the tally to the highest weekly level since December.

The week through Feb. 22 brought 242,000 initial jobless claims, compared with 220,000 a week earlier. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal had been forecasting 225,000 initial claims.

The number of continuing claims, a gauge of the size of the unemployed population, declined slightly to 1.86 million in the week through Feb 15, compared with 1.87 million the week before. The continuing-claims data lag the data on new filings by a week.

The report brought little clear evidence of the government layoffs enacted by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency initiative.

Federal employees are covered by a separate unemployment-insurance program, for which data also lag. In the week through Feb. 15, there were 614 new filings by former federal civilian employees, up from 613 a week earlier.

Some economists are also concerned that federal cost-cutting could prompt layoffs at government-adjacent firms in the private sector.

Initial indications showed that in the week through Feb. 22, unemployment claims in Washington, D.C. were 2,047, higher than a week earlier. But new claims declined in the neighboring states of Virginia and Maryland.

Write to Matt Grossman at matt.grossman@wsj.com