U.S. weekly unemployment claims fell again in the second week of August, continuing their recent streak, according to the Labor Department. Economists had expected jobless claims to dip to 265,000.
Advertisement
Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average rose to 265,250, an increase of 2,500 from the previous week’s unrevised average of 262,750.
The data overall will maintain underlying confidence in the labour market and Fed comments will continue to be monitored very closely in the short term to assess whether a majority is convinced that higher interest rates are now justified.
The biggest increase in claims were seen in Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico with the largest declines in MI and Kentucky.
Low jobless claims indicated that layoffs in the US are also very low.
New claims fell below the key 300,000 benchmark in February 2015 and have stayed under that mark for 76 weeks.
Advertisement
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending August 6 were in Pennsylvania (+2,359), Puerto Rico (+1,621), Texas (+1,196), OH (+952), and NY (+881), while the largest decreases were in MI (-2,186), Kentucky (-536), Kansas (- 283), Iowa (-280), and West Virginia (-124). These claims, reported with a one-week delay, reflect people already receiving unemployment checks.
