Weekly Jobless Claims Holding Consistent

The U.S. Department of Labor has released the weekly jobless claims for the week ending on December 12. Overall claims fell to 289,000, against the Bloomberg consensus of 295,000. The previous level was revised up to 295,000 from 294,000.

This level was previously over the 300,000 mark in late November but quickly recovered below this level.

The four-week moving average fell to 298,750, a decrease of 750, and the previous level was revised to 299,500 from 299,250. This continues a streak of the four-week average for initial claims staying under the 300,000 level that has not been seen since 2000.

No special factors impacted this week’s claims.

Continuing claims, which lag by a week, decreased significantly by 147,000 to 2.373 million. This reversed the 148,000 increase that happened in the previous week. Continuing claims were at their lowest level since December 2000. They totaled 2.263 million when weekly jobless claims were reported on November 26.

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In addition, in its final meeting for the year, the Federal Reserve this week projected unemployment rates as follows:

• 5.8% in late 2014
• 5.2% to 5.3% by late 2015
• 5.0% to 5.2% by late 2016
• 4.9% to 5.3% by late 2017