By CATHERINE THORBECKE, ABC News(WASHINGTON) — Weekly unemployment claims fell to 881,000 last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday.While the claims have been hovering at or above one million each week for months, the latest data looks different from past weeks.The Department of Labor announced last week that it was changing the methodology used to seasonally adjust national initial unemployment claims. Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique the Bureau of Labor Statistics uses in an attempt to remove the influence of predictable seasonal patterns — such as major holidays and back-to-school schedules — on the data. The changes come as the pandemic has upended nearly all predictable seasonal patterns.Copyright © 2020, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.
