Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

FILE - An Amazon motortruck drives successful in Philadelphia, Friday, April 30, 2021. Amazon wants to prosecute 125,000 transportation and warehouse workers and said Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021 that it is paying caller hires an mean of $18 an hr successful a choky occupation marketplace arsenic much radical store online. The institution is besides offering wage sign-on bonuses of $3,000 successful immoderate parts of the country. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, file)

WASHINGTON – The fig of Americans applying for unemployment assistance roseate past week for a 2nd consecutive week to 351,000, a motion that the delta variant of the coronavirus whitethorn beryllium disrupting the occupation market's recovery, astatine slightest temporarily.

Thursday's study from the Labor Department showed that jobless claims roseate by 16,000 from the erstwhile week. As the occupation marketplace has strengthened, unemployment assistance applications, which mostly way layoffs, person tumbled since topping 900,000 aboriginal this year, reflecting the economy's reopening aft the pandemic recession.

Still, jobless claims stay somewhat elevated: Before the pandemic tore done the system successful March 2020, they mostly numbered astir 220,000 a week.

America's employers person rapidly accrued their hiring since they slashed 22 cardinal jobs successful March and April 2020 arsenic the pandemic — and the shutdowns meant to incorporate it — brought economical enactment to a near-standstill. Since then, the system has recovered astir 17 cardinal jobs arsenic the rollout of vaccines encouraged businesses to unfastened and grow hours and Americans to spell backmost retired to shop, question and dine out.

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But hiring, which has averaged much than 585,000 jobs a period this year, slowed to conscionable 235,000 successful August arsenic the delta variant disrupted the recovery.

Overall, 2.8 cardinal Americans were receiving unemployment benefits during the week of Sept. 11, up by 131,000 from the week before.

Earlier this month, much than 8 cardinal radical mislaid each their unemployment benefits with the expiration of 2 national programs that covered gig workers and radical who person been jobless for much than six months. Those exigency programs had been created successful March of past twelvemonth to assistance easiness the economical hardship caused by the pandemic.

An further 2.7 cardinal radical who were receiving regular authorities unemployment assistance mislaid a $300-a-week national unemployment supplement past week.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This worldly whitethorn not beryllium published, broadcast, rewritten oregon redistributed without permission.