WASHINGTON • Fewer Americans sought unemployment benefits last week, but the modest drop did little to dispel concerns that the US job market and wider economy face an arduous recovery from the devastation inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic last year. The final major economic data point for last year, which saw a recession of historic magnitude erupt out of nowhere, stood as a fitting reminder for both how far the recovery has progressed and how much more it has to go. While new claims for benefits reported by the US Labour Department on Thursday dropped for the second week in a row to a seasonally adjusted 787,000 in the week ended Dec 26, from 806,000 a week before, it left them at roughly the level they were three months ago and with little indication they would show material improvement any time soon. The arrival of effective Covid-19 vaccines and additional federal pandemic aid have set the stage for a brighter 2021. But economists agree that the still-raging epidemic and the fractured government response to it mean more hard months ahead before improvement takes hold. "While prospects for the economy later in 2021 are upbeat, the economy and labour market will have to navi...