U.S. jobless claims rose 1,000 last week |
New applications for unemployment benefits rose for the second week in a row last week but remained near historic lows in a sign of a tight U.S. labor market. Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, increased by 1,000 to 203,000 last week from the previous week’s revised level of 202,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal had estimated new claims would fall to 194,000. The four-week average for claims, which smooths out volatility in the weekly figures, rose to 192,750. Continuing claims, a proxy for the total number of people receiving payments from state unemployment programs, fell to 1.3m for the week ended April 30th, the lowest level since January 1970. "There is no change in the underlying message of a very tight labor market and employers unwilling to lay off existing workers in the face of extreme labor scarcity," said Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital in New York. |
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