U.S. Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Climb To Nearly Four-Year High

(RTTNews) - First-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly increased in the week ended September 6th, according to a report released by the Labor Department on Thursday.

The report said initial jobless claims climbed to 263,000, an increase of 27,000 from the previous week's revised level of 236,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to edge down to 235,000 from the 237,000 originally reported for the previous week.

With the unexpected increase, jobless claims reached their highest level since hitting 268,000 in the week ended October 23, 2021.

"Initial jobless claims jumped to their highest level in nearly four years last week," said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead US Economist at Oxford Economics. "However, we caution against reading too much into the latest week's increase since it was driven by a sharp rise in claims in just one state - Texas."

The Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average also rose to 240,500, an increase of 9,750 from the previous week's revised average of 230,750.

Meanwhile, the report said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance came in at 1.939 in the week ended August 30, unchanged from the previous week's revised level

The four-week moving average of continuing claims edged down to 1,945,750, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average of 1,946,500.

"Continued claims have stabilized in recent weeks but remain elevated and consistent with a slow pace of job creation," said Vanden Houten.

Last Friday, the Labor Department released a separate report showing employment in the U.S. rose by much less than expected in the month of August.

The Labor Department said non-farm payroll employment crept up by 22,000 jobs in August after climbing by an upwardly revised 79,000 jobs in July.

Economists had expected employment to increase by 75,000 jobs compared to the addition of 73,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.

The report also showed the uptick of 14,000 jobs that had been reported for June was downwardly revised to a decrease of 13,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the unemployment rate inched up by 4.3 percent in August from 4.2 in July, in line with economist estimates.