WASHINGTON — Initial claims U.S. state unemployment benefits fell by 4,000 to 226,000 in the March 10 week, slightly below the 228,000 level expected by analysts in an MNI survey, data released by the Labor Department Thursday showed.
The four-week moving average for initial claims, which tends to be a better measure of the underlying trend of the data, fell by 750 to 221,500 in the March 10 week.
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 1,500 as the low 220,000 level in the February 17 week rolls out of the calculation.
Seasonal adjustment factors had expected a decrease of 7.5%, or 17,011, in unadjusted claims in the week. Instead, unadjusted claims fell by 20,922 (9.3%) to 204,591. The current week's level remains below the 222,227 level in the comparable week a year ago.
The level of continuing claims rose by 4,000 to 1.879 million in the March 3 week. Despite the increase, this level is still in line with the recent trend and far below the 2.025 million seen in the comparable week last year.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate remained at 1.3% in the March 3 week. The current week's rate is down from 1.5% in the same week a year earlier.
The only states where claims were estimated were Maine and Colorado. However, the claims taking procedures in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico have still not returned to normal.
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.
