Initial applications for US jobless benefits totalled 232,000 in the week ended October 18, according to the US Labour Department website showing historical data for claims.

Continuing claims, a proxy for the number of people receiving benefits, came in at 1.957 million, up slightly from 1.947 million in the prior week. For initial claims, weekly data for the previous three weeks weren’t made available.

The department did not release its weekly jobless claims report during the government shutdown, which ended last week, but it has published data on its website through other channels.

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Unadjusted state-level claims data were available for download throughout the shutdown. Economists have used those s

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