WASHINGTON — Initial claims U.S. state unemployment benefits fell by 5,000 to 229,000 in the October 28 week, well below the 235,000 level expected and driving the four-week average to a 44-year low, data released by the Labor Department Thursday showed.
The four-week moving average for initial claims, a better measure of the underlying trend of the data, fell by 7,250 to 232,500 in the October 28 week as the 258,000 level in the September 30 week rolled out of the equation. This marks the lowest point for the average since the April 7, 1973, week and confirms that claims have returned to their pre-hurricane levels.
The Labor Department reported that backlogged filings in Puerto Rico have started to be processed, but are still held up in the Virgin Islands. Unadjusted claims in Puerto Rico rose by 78% to 6,129 in the current week.
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 fall by 3,750 as the 244,000 level in the October 7 week rolls out of the calculation, which would break through to another low.
Seasonal adjustment factors had expected an increase of 2.1%, or 4,444, in unadjusted claims. Instead, unadjusted claims rose by only 86 to 215,757. The current week's level is well below the 245,751 level in the comparable week a year ago.
The level of continuing claims fell by 15,000 to 1.884 million in the October 21 week, the lowest level since the December 29, 1973 week. Unadjusted continuing claims rose by 3,705 to 1.607 million in the week, still well below the 1.742 million level a year earlier. The four-week moving average for continuing claims fell by 9,250 to 1.896 million, the lowest level since the January 12, 1974, week.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate fell to 1.3% in the October 21 week from 1.4% 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.
