Investing.com - The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. fell by 5,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 211,000, the U.S. Department of Labor said.
Economists had expected weekly jobless claims to rise by 4,000 to 220,000 from the previous week’s downwardly revised total of 216,000.
The four-week moving average was 217,250, a decline of 3,250 from the previous week. The monthly average is seen as a more accurate gauge of labor trends because it reduces volatility in the week-to-week data.
Continuing jobless claims rose to 1.756 million from 1.743 million in the preceding week, compared to expectations for an increase to 1.750 million.