Initial Claims for unemployment benefits in the US jumped to 3,283,000 for the week ending March 21 from 282,000, the data published by the US Department of Labor (DOL) revealed on Thursday.

"During the week ending March 21, the increase in initial claims are due to the impacts of the COVID-19 virus," noted the DOL in its press release. "Nearly every state providing comments cited the COVID-19 virus impacts. States continued to cite services industries broadly, particularly accommodation and food services."

Follow our live coverage of the US data and the market reaction.

Further details of the report showed that Continuing Jobless Claims for the week ending March 14 rose to its highest level since April 14, 2018, at 1,803,000.

Related articles

S&P 500 Price Analysis: US stocks trades in 7-day’s highs, strong resistance ahead.

The S&P 500 is pulling back up after suffering one of the sharpest decline in history. While the market is correcting and some investors call for a v-shaped recovery, the S&P 500 will need to clear the 2600/2700 resistance to create a more reliable bottom.

Wall Street opens decisively higher despite record Jobless Claims figures.

After closing the previous two days with strong gains, Wall Street's main indexes opened sharply higher on Thursday as investors seem to have shrugged off the huge leap in weekly Initial Jobless Claims reading.

US Jobless Claims: Off the charts – RBC Economics.

US jobless claims were off the charts at 3.28 million last week. Increase of 3 million from the previous week, nearly 2% of labour force, Josh Nye, a Senior Economist at the Royal Bank of Canada, briefs.

USD Jobless Claims: We are now using millions – BMO.

The first signs of the economic hit from COVID-19 are beginning to be seen from the 'official' data, Jennifer Lee from BMO Economics reports.