WASHINGTON-The number of Americans filing for first-time unemployment benefits was unchanged in the first week of November.
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New claims for USA unemployment insurance benefits held steady last week, close to a four-decade low as the jobs market firms, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 270,000. The monthly average smooths out sharp fluctuations in the more volatile weekly report and is seen as a more accurate predictor of labor-market trends.
No states were estimated last week and there was nothing unusual in the data, according to the Labor Department.
A more reliable measure, the average of initial claims over the past month, rose by 5,000 to 267,750. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 1.6 percent, where it’s been since mid-September.
Officials and investors view low levels of jobless claims as a sign that layoffs are also infrequent.
The report also showed continued tightening in the labor market, with a drop in the number of unemployed job seekers per open job to a low ratio of 1.4 in September.
The report said non-farm payroll employment jumped by 271,000 jobs in October compared to economist estimates for an increase of about 185,000 jobs.
“It is indicative of the skills mismatch that has basically been prevalent for the better part of last couple of years, and other metrics continue to indicate that as well”, said Jacob Oubina, senior USA economist at RBC Capital Markets in NY.
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Fed policy makers are weighing employment data along with inflation and growth figures as they debate whether to raise the benchmark interest rate for the first time since 2006.
