Pages

Thursday, May 31, 2007

US weekly jobless claims fall 4,000 to 310,000 vs 315,000 expected

WASHINGTON (Thomson Financial) - The number of people filing new claims for unemployment insurance fell by 4,000 last week, continuing a series of reports missing expectations.

The Labor Department said US first-time claims fell to a seasonally adjusted 310,000 in the week ending May 26. Analysts were forecasting 315,000 new claims.

The four-week moving average of first-time claims was up 1,000 to 304,500. Four-week averaging smoothes out fluctuations in the volatile weekly figures.

Continuing claims for the May 19 week were down 52,000 to 2.47 mln, in line with the expected 2.50 mln. The 4-week average for continuing claims was 2.50 mln, its lowest level since February.

No comments: