U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Pull Back Off Nearly Four-Year High

(RTTNews) - After reporting first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits climbed to a nearly four-year high in the previous week, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing initial jobless claims pulled back by more than expected in the week ended September 13th.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell to 231,000, a decrease of 33,000 from the previous week's revised level of 264,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to pull back to 240,000 from the 263,000 originally reported for the previous week.

The bigger than expected decrease came a week after jobless claims reached their highest level since hitting 268,000 in the week ended October 23, 2021.

"The decline is more noteworthy since claims in Texas, which drove a spike in the prior week, declined but remained elevated," said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics. "Sorting through the noise, initial claims are still consistent with a relatively low pace of layoffs."

The report also said the less volatile four-week moving average edged down to 240,000, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average of 240,750.

Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also slipped by 7,000 to 1.920 million in the week ended September 6th.

The four-week moving average of continuing claims also fell to 1,932,500, a decrease of 10,250 from the previous week's revised average of 1,942,750.

"Continued claims declined in the week ended September 6 and have started to trend lower but are still elevated, consistent with a slow pace of job creation," said Vanden Houten.