Weekly jobless claims Dec 22 2018
The number of Americans filing applications for jobless benefits fell marginally last week to near a 49-year low, pointing to underlying strength in the labor market.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 216,000 for the week ended December 22, the Labor Department said on Thursday
Initial claims have now fallen into three of the last four weeks and are just above the 49-year low of 202,000 reached in the week ended Sept. 15.
After several years of near-steady falls, claims trended higher between mid-September and mid-December, prompting the US economy was losing a step. 1[ads1]9659003] It remains unclear how much of that increase was related to the difficulty government statisticians have in adjusting the claims data for seasonal swings. th e data for seasonal fluctuations
Economists polled by Reuters forecast claims increasing to 217,000 in the latest week.
