About 26,000 more people filed first-time claims for unemployment insurance last week, the Employment and Training Administration says.
There were 397,000 such applications.
As The Associated Press says, it was "only the second increase in six weeks."
The increase may be in part because of the calendar, Bloomberg News reports:
"A Labor Department official said claims generally rise the week after a federal holiday and some New England states reported more claims due to school holidays. Presidents' Day was Feb. 21.
" 'We're just giving back the distortions from the holiday in the prior week,'said Mike Englund, chief economist at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado."
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