Jobless Claims in US – An increase but remain near a seven-year low

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment aid inched up last week but remained near a seven-year low, a sign of strength for the job market.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits, a reading that helps gauge the number of newly laid-off workers, rose by 8,000 to a seasonally adjusted 312,000 in the week ended May 31, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, which evens out some weekly volatility, fell to 310,250, the lowest level since June 2007.

Many economists see a level of claims below 400,000 as a sign of generally improving conditions in the labor markets.

Meanwhile, the number of workers continuing to draw unemployment benefits fell by 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2.6 million in the week ended May 24, the lowest level since October 2007. Those figures, reported with a one-week lag, are also a positive sign, analysts say.

The trend of a decline in workers on the unemployment rolls “remains quite encouraging, suggesting that longer-term unemployed workers may be finding jobs amid recent labor-market improvement,” wrote Gennadiy Goldberg, a strategist with TD Securities.

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at U.S. Jobless Claims Up, But Still Near 7-Year Low – WSJ