Business Failures Up 53.8% in 1st Quarter : Economy: Increase in the claims for unemployment benefits is also bad news.

There was more bad news for the economy Thursday as a leading business information firm reported a sharp rise in first-quarter business failures. In a second report, the government said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits jumped by a sharp 47,000 in the second week of April.

U.S. business failures were up 53.8% to 20,881 in the same period in 1990, Dun & Bradstreet Corp. reported.

D&B; includes in its statistics on business failures businesses that stopped operating because of bankruptcy, foreclosure, voluntary withdrawal, receivership, reorganization or voluntary agreement with creditors.

“The economic downturn has taken its toll across the United States,” said Joseph W. Duncan, vice president and corporate economist for D&B.; “Every region and every major industry sector, with the exception of mining, posted a sizable increase in failures in the first quarter.”

Besides the 54% increase in failures in the first quarter, Duncan said, dollar liabilities associated with failures increased by 74%. Both the services sector and the retail-trade industry had high levels of business failures.

Every state in the region, except Hawaii, had an increase in bankruptcies during the first quarter of 1991, with California’s failures increasing 78.3% to 3,380 from 1,896.

In the jobless report, the Labor Department said new applications for jobless claims surged to 498,000 for the week ending April 13, up from the previous week’s filing of 451,000.

“I think that we buried the recession prematurely, and the data is now showing that the recession lives,” said Robert Brusca, chief economist at Nikko Securities Co. International Inc. in New York.

Just a week ago when the government reported that jobless claims had fallen for the second straight week, some economists were saying that the back-to-back decline might be the final signal that the nation will emerge from recession by midyear.

The jobless claims numbers can be extremely volatile, but some analysts said Thursday’s number, which brought the number of new Americans searching for unemployment assistance back to the half-million mark, was bleak news for the economy.

In a separate report, the National Assn. of Realtors reported that sales of existing homes rose slightly in March for the second consecutive rise.

Analysts said the 0.6% advance was new evidence that the housing recession had bottomed out.

The trade group said sales of existing single-family homes totaled 3.18 million at a seasonally adjusted annual rate, up from 3.16 million a month earlier. February’s 8.9% advance was the first gain in sales since November.

THE ECONOMY Business failures surged during the first quarter, and initial jobless claims rose sharply last week. THE CHANGES

Business failures: Up

Jobless claims: Up

Home resales: Up slightly

WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

* Business Failures: The recession has taken its toll on businesses across the country.

* Jobless Claims: The general recession has not hit bottom yet.

* Home Resales: The real estate recession may be easing.

Sources: Dun & Bradstreet Corp.; Department of Labor; National Assn. of Realtors.