Weekly Jobless Claims Post Larger-Than-Expected Rise

The U.S. Department of Labor has released its latest installment of weekly jobless claims. The report came in at 283,000. Bloomberg was calling for 285,000. The prior week’s reading was initially reported as 264,000, but that was revised to 266,000. This may seem like a big jump on the surface, but it remains well under the 300,000 mark and is more or less in line with the estimates.

As we usually see, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said that no special factors had an impact on this week’s initial claims.

The four-week moving average was 281,000, a drop of 3,000 from the prior week’s revised average, and it was the lowest level for this average since May 6, 2000.

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment — the continuing claims — was 2,351,000 during the week ending October 11, down some 38,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of 2,389,000. This was listed by the Labor Department as the lowest level for insured unemployment since December 23, 2000.

The good news here is that jobless claims have remained handily under the 300,000 mark, despite weak numbers elsewhere.

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