The Labor Department said there were no “special factors” impacting that week’s figures.
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Applications for unemployment benefits increased 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 274,000 last week, the Department of Labor said Thursday. This is the lowest level since April 2000.
“This is more than enough to keep up with growth in the labor force, and thus the economy continues to absorb the labor market slack remaining from the Great Recession”.
This supports the view that the Federal Reserve will likely decide to increase interest rates for the first time since 2006 at their next meeting in mid-September. However, not all signals are pointing to a rate hike. Prices of merchandise and materials imported to the U.S. dropped 0.9 percent in July, the biggest decline since January.
“We haven’t seen claims at a 300,000 level since February and the economy has shown a lot of signs of improvement since then, ignoring what’s going on beyond the borders”, Jennifer Lee, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets in Toronto, told Bloomberg.
Initial claims are often quite volatile in July and August because of summer holidays and plant shutdowns. Claims touched the lowest level since 1973 in mid-July before increasing for three straight weeks.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits rose by 15,000 to 2.27 million in the week ended August 1.
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WASHINGTON-The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for jobless benefits rose only slightly last week, a sign layoffs have stabilized and the economy is adding jobs.
