The U.S. Department of Labor has released the most recent report on weekly jobless claims. For the week ended on January 17, initial claims came in 10,000 below the previously revised reading to 307,000, and they compared to the Bloomberg consensus estimates of 300,000. The previous reading was revised up by a 1,000 to 317,000 claims.
The four-week moving average was recorded at approximately 306,500, which was an increase of only 6,500 from the previous reading of 298,000 claims. The number of claims fell below the 300,000 level in late July and has only now risen above it again. This was, for a while, the longest that the four-week moving average had remained below the 300,000 level since 2000.
According to the Labor Department, there were no special factors that had an impact on this past week’s reported initial jobless claims.
Continuing claims, which are reported with a one-week lag, increased by 15,000 to 2.44 million for the week that ended January 10.
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