Breaking: U.S. Jobless Claims Record Highest Weekly Increase; Bitcoin Price Jumps

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ most recent data on the country’s unemployment growth, the initial jobless claims jumped to 211,000 in February. Although this is more than the 190K claims that were previously reported in January, it is still far more than what analysts had predicted to be. The market expectations were set at roughly 195K for the month.

Fear Of Recession Gains Steam

After a mammoth increase in the number of new jobs in January, the latest data suggests a slowdown in the employment rate; therefore raising concerns about an incoming recession. In the week ending on February 25, continuing claims, which include those who have been receiving unemployment benefits for a week or longer — and acting as an indicator of how difficult it is to find employment after losing a job — increased by 69,000 to 1.72 million. This marked the highest increase since November 2021.

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However, if measured without the adjustments, the jobless claims increased by more than 35,000, reaching a total of 237,513. The surge was driven primarily by activity in the states of California as well as New York. The Federal Reserve might take this data into consideration while releasing the upcoming interest rate hike for the month of April.

Market Turns Green As Bitcoin Price Spikes

In minutes following the release of the news, the price of Bitcoin (BTC) marginally jumped and is presently exchanging hands at $21,677. This represents an increase of 0.26% over the past 1 hour, in contrast to a drop of 1.57% over the last 24 hours. With the headline number of 211,000 claims, the whole crypto market slid into the green zone as per Coingape’s crypto tracker.

Ethereum’s (ETH) price, on the other hand, is currently trading at $1,536; reporting a gain of 0.31% in the past one hour while recording a drop of around 1% in the course of the previous 24 hours. The prices of other leading altcoins including XRP, DOGE, and BNB also witnessed an increase of roughly 0.50% in response to the news.

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