The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits jumped by the most since December 2013 last week from a week earlier, a sign of uneven progress in the labor market.
Jobless claims increased by 31,000 to 313,000 in the week ended Feb. 21 from a revised 282,000 in the prior period, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington. The median forecast of 49 economists surveyed by Bloomberg saw claims rising to 290,000.
