Unemployment benefits level out

WASHINGTON—Some 884,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits last week, and more than 13 million Americans are receiving unemployment checks, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s report released on Thursday. The job posting site Indeed said the number of open positions did not increase over the past week. Weekly unemployment applications have fallen significantly from nearly 7 million as the pandemic broke out in late March, but they remain higher than at any point during the 2008-2009 recession.

Are businesses hiring or firing? It depends on the company. This week, Amazon announced it is hiring 33,000 people, and UPS is looking to bring on 100,000. But hotel giant Marriott International on Wednesday cut nearly 700 permanent corporate jobs, or about one-sixth of its total workforce.

Dig deeper: Listen to Nick Eicher and David Bahnsen discuss improvements in the labor market on The World and Everything in It.