MY: Weekly Jobless Claims Drop 36K, Lowest Since July 2008
(MarketWatch) - After weeks of volatility, new applications for regular state unemployment-insurance benefits moved below the key 400,000-claim level, according to data released Thursday by the US Labor Department.
Initial claims for these benefits fell 36,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 383,000 in the week ended Feb. 5, hitting the lowest seen since July 2008.
The level of claims helps observers analyze the health of the labor market, and economists said claims would have to remain below 400,000 before there was a substantial gain in hiring. The last time claims were below 400,000 was in late December.
Economists polled by MarketWatch expected an initial-claims level of 410,000 for last week.
In recent weeks, weather was behind some volatility in the data. The four-week average of new claims, which smoothes out some volatility, fell 16,000 to a total of 415,500.
Continuing claims, which reflect the number of people already receiving unemployment compensation, also declined, down 47,000 to a total of 3.89 million in the week ended Jan. 29. The four-week average of these continuing claims remained at 3.93 million.
About 9.4 million Americans were getting some kind of state or federal unemployment benefit in the week ended Jan. 22, up about 106,000 from the prior week.
US stock futures lightly pared losses after the Labor Department released its data. Down about 50 points before the report, futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average were off 42 points to 12,165. Futures for the Standard & Poor's 500 fell 6.2 points to 1,313, and those for the Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 19 points to 2,343.25.
