Jobless claims climbed by 15,000 filings to 309,000 for the week ending Sept. 14, but those numbers were skewed by a backlog of unprocessed claims in two states.
Claims data have been thrown into disarray since an update in government computer systems in California and Nevada created a backlog in the processing of new claims two weeks ago.
That initially led to a sharp decline in new processed claims earlier this month, and a Labor Department analyst said the two states still appeared to be working through the backlog, which he said could take another week or two.
