WASHINGTON – Initial jobless claims dropped by 28,000 to 452,000 for the week ending Dec. 19, the lowest number of initial claims this year, the Labor Department reported today.
Continuing claims dropped by 127,000 to 5.076 million in the week ending Dec. 12 and are at the lowest level since February.
Both initial and continuing claims were below the seasonally adjusted expectations, a Labor Department official said, but this week is historically a difficult week to seasonally adjust, he said.
Initial claims are at the lowest level since September 2008 and have dropped from a high of 674,000 in March.
Economists expected 470,000 initial claims and 5.120 million continuing claims, according to the median estimate from Thomson Reuters.
Initial claims for the week ending Dec. 12 were revised higher to 480,000 from 430,000 first reported. Continuing claims were revised higher to 5.203 million from 5.186 million.
The four-week moving average of initial claims, a less volatile figure, was 465,250 for the week ending Dec. 19 and has fallen for 16 consecutive weeks to the lowest level since September 2008. The four-week average for continuing claims fell to 5.233 million and has fallen for 13 consecutive weeks.
