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Another wave of 6.6 million American workers filed first-time unemployment claims for the week that ended April 4, bringing the cumulative total to an astonishing 16 million over the past three weeks.

For the week that ended March 21, 3.3 million people filed new unemployment claims, easily shattering the record of 695,000, set in 1982. Last week, that astounding figure doubled, as 6.6 million people filed claims for the week that ended March 28 — a figure that was revised upward to 6.9 million in the new release.

Thursday's figure was at the high end of analysts' estimates of 4.5 million to 7 million.

"So far, jobless claims look to me like the only limitation on the number of applications has been the states' ability to process those claims," said Darrell Cronk, chief investment officer of Wells Fargo Wealth and Investment Management.

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The cumulative toll of the last three weeks comes as last week's Labor Department release showed that the economy shed 701,000 jobs in March — a figure far more negative than anticipated, although economists said it captured only a fraction of the carnage in the labor market in the second half of the month.