U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose by 12,000 to 669,000

April 2 (Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing unemployment claims unexpectedly rose last week to the highest level since 1982 and those staying on benefit rolls jumped to a record as companies kept cutting jobs to trim costs.

Initial jobless claims swelled by 12,000 to 669,000 in the week ended March 28, topping 600,000 for a ninth straight time, after a revised 657,000 the prior week, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The number of people staying on benefit rolls soared in the prior week to 5.73 million.

“It is difficult to sustain any rebound in consumer spending when you have such sharp declines in employment,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “It’s getting harder to get a job once you lose it.”