WASHINGTON – Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits fell by 8,000 to 237,000 in the June 10 week, below the 242,000 level analysts expected following an unrevised 245,000 level in the previous week, data released by the Labor Department Thursday showed.
The level of claims has decline in the last two weeks to bring it closer to the decades-low levels in early May, but the four-week moving average for initial claims, a better measure of the underlying trend of the data, rose by 1,000 to 243,000 in the June 10 week, a third straight increase.
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 rise by another 500 as the 235,000 level in the May 20 week rolls out of the calculation, but would likely contract in the following week.
Seasonal adjustment factors had expected an increase of 13.6%, or 28,924, in unadjusted claims in the week following the previous week's holiday impacted decline. Instead, unadjusted claims rose by 21,309 to 233,579, but were still well below the 266,277 level in the comparable week a year ago.
The level of continuing claims rose by 6,000 to 1.935 million in the June 3 week following an upward revision in the previous week. The four-week moving average for continuing claims rose by 9,000 to 1.927 million in the June 3 week, a second straight gain.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate held steady at 1.4% in the June 3 week for the ninth straight week. The current week's rate is down from 1.6% 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.
