Initial Weekly Claims Rise 20,000
NEW YORK (
) -- The number of Americans filing unemployment claims for the first time rose more than expected last week according to a labor department report released early Thursday.
The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims increased by 20,000 to 457,000 in the week ended Oct. 30, from the previous week's upwardly revised estimate of 437,000. Analysts were expecting initial claims to rise by 11,000 to 445,000, according to consensus estimates from
Briefing.com
.
The number of people filing continuing claims -- those who have been receiving unemployment insurance for at least a week -- came in lower than expected at 4.34 million for the week ended Oct. 23, a decrease of 42,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 4.382 million. Consensus estimates projected continuing claims to rise to 4.386 million.
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The 4-week moving average in initial claims, which smoothes the volatility in week-to-week reports, was 456,000, an increase of 2,000 from the previous week's revised average of 454,000. The 4-week moving average in continuing claims was 4.410 million, a decrease of 42,750 from the preceding week's average of 4.453 million.
This initial weekly claims report comes a day before the Labor Department reports nonfarm payroll numbers for the month of October. The economy is projected to have added 60,000 jobs in October, according to consensus estimates from
Briefing.com
. In
September, the economy shed 95,000 jobs, as the state and local government laid off more workers and private sector job growth remained modest.
On Wednesday the
ADP National Employment Report said companies added 43,000 jobs in October. That may cause some upward revision to the estimates for job growth in October but economists say job growth is still far below levels necessary for a strong economic recovery.
-- Written by Shanthi Venkataraman in New York.
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