WASHINGTON — Initial claims U.S. state unemployment benefits fell by 13,000 to 239,000 in the November 18 employment survey week, very close to the 240,000 level expected, but up 16,000 from the decades-low 223,000 level in the October 14 employment survey week, data released by the Labor Department Wednesday showed.
The four-week moving average for initial claims, a better measure of the underlying trend of the data, rose by 1,250 to 239,750 in the November 18 week as the 234,000 level in the October 21 week rolled out of the equation.
If the number of headline claims does not change next week and there are no revisions to data from the past four weeks, the four-week average will rise by 2,500 as the 229,000 level in the October 28 week rolls out of the calculation.
The Labor Department reported that backlogged claims filings in Puerto Rico continued to be processed, while claims in the Virgin Islands "continue to be disrupted." Unadjusted claims in Puerto Rico totaled 6,944 in the current week after 6,690 in the previous week.
Seasonal adjustment factors had expected an increase of 22.3%, or 52,772, in unadjusted claims in the current week. Instead, unadjusted claim rose by 37,608 to 274,200, so the current week's level was below the 287,794 level a year ago.
The level of continuing claims rose by 36,000 to 1.904 million in the November 11 week after hitting a decades-low level of 1.868 million in the previous week.
Unadjusted continuing claims rose by 92,077 to 1.714 million in the week, but was still well below the 1.857 million level a year earlier. The four-week moving average for continuing claims rose by 1,000 to 1.890 million.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate rose to 1.4% in the November 11 week from 1.3% in the previous week. The current week's rate is down from 1.5% in the same 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.
