US jobless claims hit 16-year high

New claims for unemployment benefits in the US jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labour Department said.

The government said new applications for jobless benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 542,000 from a downwardly revised figure of 515,000 in the previous week.

That is much higher than Wall Street economists' expectations of 505,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

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