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.