Last week, the number of the US citizens, who had applied for unemployment benefits for the first time, increased by 9,000 to 227, the country's Ministry of Labor reported. Analysts had predicted that the figure would increase to 220 thousand. The average number of applications for the last four weeks increased from 221 thousand to 222 thousand. The number of Americans who continue to receive unemployment benefits, for the week ending June 16, decreased by 21 thousand and amounted to 1 million 705 thousand people. Experts had expected the figure at the level of 1 million 717 thousand people.
