Despite the biggest jump in claims in more than eight months, the number of people applying for benefits remains near a 15-year low.
Advertisement
Claims were unrevised at 260,000 for the week ending October 24.
Thursday’s numbers represent a slight movement away from the rock-bottom levels jobless claims have plumbed over the course of 2015. A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors influencing the data.
The four-week moving average of claims, which evens out weekly ups and downs, rose by 3,500 to 262,750 last week.
Whether ultra-low jobless claims still translate to job growth will be tested Friday morning with the release of the October jobs report. Applications for jobless benefits are among the brightest spots in a US economy that has seen a few potential signs of weakness in other indicators.
Estimates from 48 economists in the Bloomberg survey ranged from 255,000 to 275,000. The USA unemployment rate is forecast at 5.1%.
“The continued low level of claims suggests that the recent slowing in payroll growth will be short-lived”, wrote UBS economists in a client preview.
Manufacturing productivity increased at its fastest pace in four years, led by the durable goods sector.
Economists blame softer productivity on lack of investment, which they say has led to an unprecedented decline in capital intensity.
That reflected a drop in part-time employment as well as adjustments to hours for non-profit and government enterprise workers.
Advertisement
Unit labor costs, the price of labor per single unit of output, increased at a 1.4 percent rate in the third quarter after dropping at a 1.8 percent rate in the prior quarter. Higher unit labour costs than 2.5% QoQ should be bullish. Investors expect around 190,000 new jobs in the month, more than enough to keep the unemployment rate falling.
