The number of people receiving unemployment benefits has reached an all-time record, the government said Thursday, as layoffs spread throughout the economy.
The Labor Department reported that the number of Americans continuing to claim unemployment insurance for the week ending Jan. 17 was a seasonally adjusted 4.78 million, the highest on records dating back to 1967.
A department analyst said that as a proportion of the work force, the tally of unemployment recipients is the highest since August 1983.
The total released by the department doesn't include about 1.7 million people receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program authorized by Congress last summer. That means the total number of recipients is actually closer to 6.5 million people.
Meanwhile, the tally of Americans filing new jobless benefit claims rose slightly to a seasonally adjusted 588,000 last week, from a downwardly revised figure of 585,000 the previous week.
That's close to the 26-year high of 589,000 reached in late December, though the labor force has grown by about half since then.
The Labor Department's report comes as large corporations from virtually all sectors of the economy are announcing massive layoffs.
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