Filings for unemployment insurance claims totaled 1.877 million last week in a sign both that the worst is over for the coronavirus-related jobs crisis but that the level of unemployment remains stubbornly high.Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for 1.775 million new claims. The total nevertheless represented a decline from the previous week's upwardly revised total of 2.126 million. Filings under the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program totaled 623,073.Zoom In IconArrows pointing outwardsContinuing claims, which provide a clearer picture of how many Americans remain unemployed, totaled 21.5 million, a gain of 649,000 over the past week, also worse than Wall Street expected.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — Applications for temporary unemployment assistance in Wyoming declined during the week ending May 30 as the U.S. economy continued to struggle with measures to contain the coronavirus, officials said Thursday.The number of applications submitted in Wyoming fell to 1,926, down 31% from the previous week but still up 338% compared to the same week last year, according to the U.S. Employment and Training Administration.Wyoming has processed 43,444 claims for unemployment since March 14. That represents 16% of Wyoming’s total workforce eligible for the unemployment insurance program.Wyoming contributed to a national increase in the seasonally-adjusted number of claims of 746% compared to the same week last year.

The COVID-19 crisis has clearly demonstrated the vulnerability of the livelihoods of many South Africans, and highlighted food insecurity as one key aspect. Many now argue that reducing the vulnerability of the livelihoods of the poor, and associated food insecurity, must become a key focus of policy.Some assert that structural reform, tackling these problems at their root, is required more urgently than before. Land reform has this potential. It is, in any case, a political necessity. If successful, it could play a significant role in reducing the vulnerability and food insecurity of the rural population, who are one third of the population, as well as some urban residents. Enhancing employment and thus incomes is one key thrust of pro-poor land reform.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The Institute for Supply Management, formerly the Purchasing Management Association, began formally surveying its membership in 1931 to gauge business conditions. The Creighton Economic Forecasting Group uses the same methodology as the national survey to consult supply managers and business leaders. Creighton University economics professor Ernie Goss oversees the report. The overall index ranges between 0 and 100. Growth neutral is 50, and a figure greater than 50 indicates growth in that factor over the next three to six months. A figure below 50 indicates decline.Here are the state-by-state results for May: Arkansas: The state’s overall index rose to 43.7 from April’s 35.1. Components of the index were: new orders at 32.8, production or sales at 34.1, delivery lead time at 60.9, inventories at 49.6, and employment at 41.1. Goss said the state’s unemployment rate jumped from 4.9% in March to 10.3% in April. The state lost 102,000 jobs in this period.

Tim Lesko, partner at Granite Investment Advisors, and Chris Varvares, vice president and co-head of U.S. economics at IHS Markit, join "Squawk Box" to discuss the economy and investing opportunities.

CNBC's Rick Santelli reports the initial jobless claims data for the week ending May 30.

BERLIN (AP) — Germany’s unemployment rate rose modestly to 6.1% last month, contained by extensive use of a short-time work program that kept millions of people on payrolls, official data showed Wednesday as the government mulled a stimulus package to reinvigorate Europe’s biggest economy.The number of people registered as jobless rose to 2.81 million in May — 169,000 more than in April and 577,000 more than a year earlier, the Federal Labor Agency said. The unadjusted jobless rate — the headline figure in Germany — was up from 5.8% to 6.1%, following a sharper increase in April. In seasonally adjusted terms, unemployment increased to 6.3% from 5.8%. Before the coronavirus pandemic hit, it had stood at 5% for months.

Long after the COVID-19 health emergency ends, many Americans will still suffer from the long tail of the pandemic’s economic devastation. For people on the country’s economic fringes, the proliferation of data analytics tools to monitor consumer life – driven by companies that profit from gathering personal data – will magnify today’s financial hardship.These companies scrape data from your public records, social media interactions, purchase history and smartphone location tracking. Using powerful technologies, they fuse your data into digital profiles that landlords, employers, lenders and other gatekeepers to life’s necessities use to sort and screen people.

Preventing deaths from COVID-19 depends on people who get it seeking treatment – which also allows authorities to track down whom they came in contact with to reduce spread. But, as the economic pain and joblessness caused by the statewide lockdowns continue to grow, more Americans are experiencing severe strains on their personal finances. This threatens our ability to contain the pandemic because those feeling the most financial stress are much less likely to seek medical care if they experience coronavirus symptoms, according to my analysis of a recent Federal Reserve survey.

Julie Norman, teaching fellow in Politics and International Relations at UCL, discusses President Trump's response to the civil unrest across the United States.

President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday that seeks to limit some of the federal protections of online companies. The order marks a dramatic escalation in tensions between the White House and some big social media companies as they try to deal with misinformation. CNBC's "Squawk on the Street" crew discuss.

Private payrolls fell by 2.76 million in May, according to a report Wednesday from ADP. CNBC's Steve Liesman reports.

Paul Christopher of Wells Fargo Investment Institute says investors are overestimating company earnings for 2020 as the U.S. economy has yet to recover. He adds that hypersensitivity to headlines means markets are no longer trading on fundamentals.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Applications for unemployment payments in Montana declined last week as the state continues to lift closures put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, officials said Thursday,The number of new applications for job assistance submitted in Montana last week fell to 2,874, according to the U.S. Employment and Training Administration. That’s a decrease of nearly 25% from the 3,821 claims filed a week earlier, but an increase of nearly 280% from the number of applications submitted at the same time last year.Montana has processed 108,572 claims for unemployment since March 14. That represents 23.8% of the total workforce eligible for the unemployment insurance program.

Unemployment in the euro zone rose to 7.3% in April, according to the latest data from Eurostat, reflecting job losses as coronavirus lockdowns were in full-swing across the single currency region.The jobless rate rose from 7.1% in March, revised lower from a previous figure, when European countries first implemented lockdown strategies to quell the outbreak that emerged in Italy in late February.For the wider European Union, the unemployment rate hit 6.6% in April 2020, up from 6.4% in March 2020.The data showed that young people are bearing the brunt of job losses in the euro area, with the unemployment rate for under-25s rising to 15.8% in April, up from 15.1% the previous month. In the EU too, youth unemployment rose to 15.4% in April, up from 14.6%. 

Preventing deaths from COVID-19 depends on people who get it seeking treatment – which also allows authorities to track down whom they came in contact with to reduce spread. But, as the economic pain and joblessness caused by the statewide lockdowns continue to grow, more Americans are experiencing severe strains on their personal finances. This threatens our ability to contain the pandemic because those feeling the most financial stress are much less likely to seek medical care if they experience coronavirus symptoms, according to my analysis of a recent Federal Reserve survey.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — New unemployment claims declined by nearly 25% in Alabama over a week as state businesses continued reopening during the pandemic, statistics showed Thursday.More than 550,000 people in all have filed for jobless benefits since state-ordered shutdowns began in March to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, and a report by the state Labor Department showed thousands are still losing jobs because of the pandemic.But while the agency said 21,335 people applied for benefits last week, that was down from 27,920 the week before. About 60% of the new claims were related to COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus, the state said.The single highest number of weekly claims filed amid the pandemic was 106,739 in early April. More than 290,000 people are currently receiving unemployment benefits statewide, the department said.

Finding good news in the loss of another three million jobs isn't easy, but the steep drop in private payrolls for May could be a sign that the worst over.ADP reported Wednesday that companies shed another 2.76 million positions last month. Under normal circumstances, such a report would be considered catastrophic. But these aren't normal times.Instead, a count that was well below the 8.75 million estimate provided hope that the most severe jobs crisis in U.S. history is about to turn around as an economy battered by the coronavirus pandemic takes its first steps to reopening."The good news is I think the recession is over, the Covid-19 recession is over, barring another second wave, a major second wave, or real serious policy errors," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, which puts the private payrolls report together with ADP. The bad news, he added, is that "the recovery will be a slog until there's a vaccine or therapy that's distributed and adopted widely."

CNBC's Jim Cramer said Monday that the stock market's moves this week would revolve around progress on the reopening of businesses nationwide, which could possibly be impacted by the protests against police violence. "I think it's about the reopening and to see how that goes. Whether the protests make the reopening delayed would be terrible, but I understand the protesters and I'm sympathetic with anyone whose a peaceful, safe protester," Cramer said on "Squawk on the Street.""You want to see unemployment go down," he continued. "And I think the only way you can have unemployment go down is to reopen, and to reopen in a way that makes it so that the jobs come back."Several companies, including Target and Apple, temporarily closed some of their stores because of the protests. Many major cities also imposed curfews as some people looted retail stores. Cramer said that the protests, including one near his Brooklyn, New York, restaurant, were "antithetical" to opening small businesses.

Companies trimmed another 2.76 million workers in May as the coronavirus pandemic continued to slice through the U.S. economy, according to a report Wednesday from ADP.Job losses were especially deep in large businesses, which reported a decline of more than 1.6 million. Manufacturing took one of the biggest hits as the sector lost 719,000 workers.The reported total was well below the 8.75 million estimate from economists surveyed by Dow Jones. The reason for the wide disparity was not immediately clear.May's count also marked a precipitous drop-off from the 19.6 million plunge in April, an estimate that was revised from the initially reported 20.2 million. The April loss was by far the worst in the history of the ADP survey.

Jason Furman, professor at Harvard's Kennedy School and former CEA chairman, joins "Squawk Box" to discuss the latest economic data as well as the path toward reopening the economy.

Danielle Dimartino Booth of Quill Intelligence says the U.S. is going in the wrong direction in terms on layoffs, and the root cause is the disparity in educational attainment within the country. Danielle predicts that this current crisis may result in leaner workforces as a result of automation.

The primary strategy to slow the spread of the coronavirus has been social distancing, which reduces contact between individuals. While the federal government can recommend social distancing, the decision to issue formal measures ultimately resides with state and local governments. Though almost every state in the nation eventually implemented some policy to combat COVID-19, there was a lot of variation in what was done and how quickly each state acted.

One of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s favourite exhortations is that we all “be kind” to one another. It’s part of the reason she and her government have won admiration around the world for their handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their latest income support program, however, has led many to question why that kindness is not extended to the country’s 300,000-plus pre-COVID welfare beneficiaries. These New Zealanders have fared worse under New Zealand’s centre-left coalition than their Australian counterparts have under Scott Morrison’s centre-right government.