WASHINGTON — Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits fell by 1,000 in the January 27 week to 230,000, when analysts had expected claims to actually rise modestly to 238,000, data released by the Labor Department Thursday showed.
Seasonal adjustment factors had expected an increase of 3.4%, or 8,792 in unadjusted claims. Unadjusted claims actually rose by 7,604 to 267,674, but the current week's level was still well below the 280,983 level a year ago.
The four-week moving average for initial claims, a better measure of the underlying trend of the data during periods of volatility, fell by 5,000 to 234,500 in the January 27 week as the 250,000 level in the December 30 week rolled out of the equation.
If the number of headline claims does not change next week and there are no revisions to data from the past four weeks, the four-week average will fall by 7,750 as the recent peak 261,000 level in the January 6 week rolls out of the calculation.
The level of seasonally adjusted continuing claims rose by 13,000 to 1.953 million in the January 20 week after dipping to 1.940 million in the previous week, but the level is still significantly lower than a year earlier.
The four-week moving average for continuing claims rose by 12,000 to 1.933 million in the January 20 week, as a 1.905 million level in the December 23 week dropped out.
It is likely the average will rise further in next week's data, as the extremely low 1.873 million level in the December 30 holiday week will no longer be in the calculation.
Unadjusted continuing claims rose by 85,441 to 2.373 million in the week, but remained below the 2.495 million level a year earlier.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate held steady at 1.4%, down slightly from 1.5% in the same week a year earlier.
The unemployment rate among the insured labor force is well below that reported monthly by the Labor Department because claims are approved for the most part only for job losers, not the job leavers and labor force reentrants included in the monthly report.
