WASHINGTON — Initial claims for U.S. state unemployment benefits fell by far more than expected in the April 27 week to its lowest level in just over five years, declining by 18,000 to 324,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday.
Expectations for this week's report were for a claims level of 345,000, an increase of 6,000 from the previously reported 339,000 level in April 20 week. The initial claims level in that week was revised up to 342,000.
The level of initial jobless claims is the lowest since the week of January 19, 2008, when it came in at 321,000.
The initial claims seasonally adjusted 4-week moving average declined for the second straight week, down 16,000 to 342,250 in the April 27 week.
A Labor Department analyst said that there were no states estimated and nothing usual in the state level data.
The analyst said seasonal adjustment factors had expected a 3.5% decline in unadjusted claims, or roughly 11,000, in the April 27 week. Instead, unadjusted claims fell 8.3%, or 27,143, to 298,692. That level is below the 333,476 level reported in the comparable week a year ago.
The state data released for the April 20 week indicated unadjusted initial claims increased in 14 states and declined in 39 states, with no states unchanged. The District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Virgin Islands are included in this data. The largest decrease that week was in California, which reported fewer layoffs in the service industry.
After falling to its lowest level in five years the prior week, continuing claims came in at 3.019 million after seasonal adjustment in the April 20 week, an increase of 12,000.
The level of unadjusted continuing claims fell 87,321 to 3,016,148 in the April 20 week, well below the 3,292,783 level in the comparable week a year ago.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was unchanged at 2.3% in the April 20 week after falling in the previous report. The rate was 2.6% 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 fell 12,579 to 1,777,737 in the April 13 week.
The Labor Department reported that a total of 4,963,449 persons claimed unemployment benefits in the April 13 week, a decline of 108,631 from the previous week, and still well below the 6,597,715 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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