WASHINGTON - There were 434,000 initial claims for unemployment insurance in the week ending May 7, according to a report from the Labor Department Thursday.
That seasonally adjusted number is down from the revised 478,000 new claims in the week ending April 30.
Economists were looking for 430,000 new claims based on the median estimate of the Thomson Reuters poll.
Continuing claims were 3.756 million for the week ending April 30 compared to the revised figure of 3.751 million for the previous week.
The economists' poll median estimate for continuing claims was 3.70 million.
The initial claims numbers for both April 30 and April 23 were affected by a number of special factors, such as supply chain problems in the auto industry due to the Japan earthquake. But some analysts doubt the entire rise of claims over the last month can be blamed just on those special factors and were expecting a large decline in initial claims for last week.
The less volatile four-week moving average of new claims for the May 7 week was 436,750 up from the revised 432,250 in the previous week.
For continuing claims, the four week average was 3.719 million up from the previous week's revised 3.705 million.
