Washington, Jan 29 (IANS): Initial unemployment claims in the US dropped to 847,000 last week, the second consecutive decline after soaring to a five-month high, the Labour Department reported.

In the week ending January 23, the number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits declined by 67,000 from the previous week's upwardly revised level of 914,000, according to a report released on Thursday by the Department's Bureau of Labour Statistics.

The latest report also showed that the number of people continuing to collect regular state unemployment benefits in the week ending January 16 decreased by 203,000 to 4.77 million, reports Xinhua news agency.

Meanwhile, the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs, state and federal combined, for the week ending January 9 increased by 2.29 million to nearly 18.3 million, as the country is still struggling to grapple with surging Covid-19 cases.

According to the monthly employment report released by the Labour Department earlier this month, US employers slashed 140,000 jobs in December 2020, marking the first monthly decline in employment since April 2020.