New data shows holiday sales rose this year even as Americans wrestled with still high prices in many grocery necessities and other financial worries.

The Federal Reserve says theres evidence that hiring has picked up in recent weeks, though the job market remains badly damaged by the pandemic. Jobless claims declined by 111,000 from the previous week to a seasonally adjusted 730,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Still, before the virus erupted in the United States last March, weekly applications for unemployment benefits had never topped 700,000. The latest figures coincide with a weakened job market that has made scant progress in the past three months. AdAll told, 19 million people were receiving unemployment aid as of Feb. 6, up from 18.3 million the previous week.

US employers added 128,000 jobs in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in its monthly jobs report. Overall, the report was far stronger than expected, beating economists' forecasts for a gain in 89,000 jobs. While the October report did show that US manufacturers lost 36,000 jobs last month, BLS Commissioner William Beach noted the decline largely reflected strike activity. Another bright spot came from strong revisions to prior data, which showed an extra 95,000 jobs were added in August and September combined. Although the report was strong, hiring has slowed down in 2019 compared with 2018, averaging just 167,000 jobs per month versus 223,000 last year.