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US: jobless claims slow crawl lower
Initial jobless claims for the week of 9 May didn’t slow as quickly as hoped at 2.981 million (versus consensus forecast of 2.5 million and only 195,000 below the previous week) bringing the 8-week running total to 36.76 million. The data shows a huge spike in claimants in Connecticut – 298,680 versus 36,138 the previous week – while Florida and Georgia, which are supposedly more advance in the re-opening process, also saw fairly sizeable increases on the previous week of 47,045 and 13,035 respectively. Most other states saw a slowing in new jobless claims with California seeing 102,299 fewer and Texas 102,263 ... (full story)