The U.S. Labor Department is out with another weekly jobless claims reading.
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Initial jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs across the U.S., increased 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 277,000 in the week ended August 15, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Initial jobless claims reflect weekly firings and typically decrease before job growth can accelerate.
The previous week’s average of claims was revised, with the new total amounting to 1,000 fewer applications than previously reported.
“While the claims numbers are expected to remain near a four-decade low, August nonfarm payrolls could disappoint given their historical tendency to do so”. Prices for US Treasuries fell slightly after the data, while stock index futures were pointing to a lower open on Wall Street.
“The details of this morning’s report support our view that labor market slack has continued to decline”, said Rob Martin of Barclays Research. Futures markets on Wednesday trimmed bets for monetary policy tightening next month.
The report also said the less volatile four-week moving average rose to 271,500, an increase of 5,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 266,000.
Layoffs occur even in a healthy labor market.
In July, employers added a net 215,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate remained at a seven-year low of 5.3 percent. That is 10.5 per cent below the level one year ago. But the steady job gains and falling unemployment rate have yet to boost wages.
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With the unexpected increase, jobless claims climbed further off the more than forty-year low of 255,000 set in the week ended July 18th.
