New claims of US unemployment insurance benefits fell last week in a fresh signal of a slowly improving jobs market, official data released Thursday showed.
Initial jobless claims, a sign of the pace of layoffs, fell to a seasonally adjusted 323,000 from the prior week’s revised 327,000, the Labor Department reported.
The four-week moving average of new claims fell to 336,750 from 343,000.
Claims were at their lowest level since mid-January 2008, based on seasonally adjusted numbers, and came in well below the 336,000 consensus estimate.
last week the Labor Department reported that job creation accelerated in April and the unemployment rate slipped a tenth percentage point to 7.5 percent, its lowest level since December 2008.
US weekly jobless claims fall
