With the monthly jobs report looming, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing an unexpected pullback in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended July 2nd.
The report said initial jobless claims fell to 254,000, a decrease of 16,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 270,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 270,000 from the 268,000 originally reported for the previous month.
As a result of the decrease, jobless claims pulled back to their lowest level since hitting a 42-year low of 248,000 in the week ended April 16th.
The Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average also edged down to 264,750, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 267,250.
The modest drop pulled the four-week moving average down to its lowest level since hitting 258,000 in the week ended April 30th.
Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also fell by 44,000 to 2.124 million in the week ended June 25th.
On the other hand, the four-week moving average of continuing claims inched up to 2,148,250, an increase of 3,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 2,145,250.
The Labor Department is scheduled to release its more closely watched monthly employment report for June on Friday.
The report is expected to show an increase of about 180,000 jobs in June after employment edged up by just 38,000 jobs in May. The unemployment rate is expected to tick up to 4.8 percent from 4.7 percent.
The material has been provided by InstaForex Company – www.instaforex.com