WASHINGTON — Seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims declined to 364,000 for the week ending Dec. 17, a 4,000 decrease from the previous week’s revised figure of 368,000 and the lowest since April 19, 2008, when claims were 352,000, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
Continuing claims dropped to 3.546 million for the week ending Dec. 10, 79,000 less than the previous week’s revised level of 3.625 million and the lowest level since Sept. 13, 2008, when continuing claims were 3.509 million.
The 364,000 of initial claims were lower than the median 380,000 projected by economists polled by Thomson Reuters and the 3.546 million of continuing claims were lower than the median 3.6 million they estimated.
