Number of Initial Jobless Claims Drops by 1,000

A thousand fewer Americans applied for unemployment last week than did so the previous week.

The advance figure for initial claims was 191,000 for the week ended March 18, down from 192,000 the previous week, the Department of Labor said in a Thursday (March 23) press release.

The four-week moving average declined by 250, moving down to 196,250 from the previous week’s 196,500, according to the release.

“The count of U.S. initial claims for unemployment insurance is a leading economic indicator because it is an indication of emerging labor market conditions in the country,” the Department of Labor said in the release.

The decline in applications for unemployment benefits was unexpected, Bloomberg reported Thursday, adding that its survey of economists had predicted that there would be 197,000 such applications during the week.

The newly released figures show that the job market is still tight and that it remains so despite the Federal Reserve’s yearlong series of interest rate hikes, according to the Bloomberg report.

The number of continued claims — which includes people who have been unemployed for at least one week — increased by 14,000 during the week ended March 11, climbing to 1.69 million from the previous week’s 1.68 million, according to the Department of Labor.

The four-week moving average of continued claims increased by 8,500, rising to 1.68 million, the agency said.

“The count of U.S. continued weeks claimed is also a good indicator of labor market conditions,” the Department of Labor said. “While continued claims are not a leading indicator (they roughly coincide with economic cycles at their peaks and lag at cycle troughs), they provide confirming evidence of the direction of the U.S. economy.”

This report comes about two weeks after the Bureau of Labor Statistics said job growth continued but slowed in February.

The U.S. added 311,000 jobs during that month, fewer than the revised 504,000 reported for January and the average monthly gain of 343,000 seen over the prior six months, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in a March 10 press release.