WASHINGTON — Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits fell more than expected in the April 6 week, declining by 42,000 to 346,000 and more than offsetting the 31,000 rise in the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
The claims level was still 12,000 above the most recent low of 334,000 posted in the March 9 week.
Expectations for this week's report was for a claims level of 360,000, a drop of 25,000 from the previously reported 385,000 level in March 30 week. The initial claims level in the March 30 week was revised up slightly to 388,000.
The initial claims seasonally adjusted 4-week moving average rose 3,000 to 358,000 in the April 6 week, the highest since the February 16 week, when it was 362,250. This was the third straight increase in the moving average after four straight declines.
A Labor Department analyst said there was nothing unusual in the state level data and that no states were estimated.
However, it is not uncommon for there to be sharp movements in the claims level around moving holidays such as Easter.
The analyst said that seasonal adjustment factors had expected a 25% rise in unadjusted claims, or roughly 80,000, in the April 6 week. Instead, unadjusted claims rose by only 11.7%, or 37,025, to 353,973. That level is below the 390,064 reported in the comparable week a year ago.
The state data released for the March 30 week indicated unadjusted initial claims increased in 21 states and declined in 32 states, with no states unchanged. The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands are included in this data.
The level of continuing claims came in at 3.079 million after seasonal adjustment in the March 30 week, a decline of 12,000 from the previous week.
The level of unadjusted continuing claims fell 84,488 to 3,266,392 in the March 30 week, below the 3,470,104 level in the comparable week a year ago.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment held steady at 2.4% in the March 30 week, below the seasonally adjusted 2.6% rate in the comparable week a year earlier.
The unemployment rate among the insured labor force is well below that reported monthly by the Labor Department because claims are approved for the most part only for job losers, not the job leavers and labor force reentrants included in the monthly report.
The Labor Department said that the level of unadjusted Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits claims rose 37,929 to 1,837,554 in the March 23 week.
The Labor Department reported that a total of 5,277,512 persons claimed unemployment benefits in the March 23 survey week, a 10,573 decline from the previous week, and still well below the 6,952,894 persons in the comparable week a year ago. These data are not seasonally adjusted, and include regular state claims, federal employee claims, new veterans claims, the EUC and extended benefits programs, state additional benefits, and STC/Workshare claims.
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