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U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Edge Modestly Lower
(RTTNews) - First-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits saw a modest decline in the week ended August 12th, according to a report released by the Labor Department on Thursday.
The report said initial jobless claims slipped to 239,000, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week's revised level of 250,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to dip to 240,000 from the 248,000 originally reported for the previous week.
"So far, there is no sign that the shutdown of the Yellow trucking company on July 31 has boosted initial jobless claims; that closure affected about 30k employees," said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.
She added, "While labor markets remain tight and job openings are still high, hiring in the trucking industry has slowed recently, with job losses in June and July so we expect at some point some of these workers will be filing for jobless benefits."
Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average crept up to 234,250, an increase of 2,750 from the previous week's revised average of 231,500.
The report said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also rose by 32,000 to 1.716 million in the week ended August 5th.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims still fell to 1,692,750, a decrease of 8,250 from the previous week's unrevised average of 1,701,000.
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