The Wall Street Journal
By Eric Morath
Updated Jan. 2, 2014 11:14 a.m. ET
WASHINGTON—The number of people filing for new unemployment compensation fell slightly last week, while thousands of others faced the loss of extended benefits.
Initial claims for jobless benefits, a measure of layoffs, decreased by 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 339,000 in the week ended Dec. 28, the Labor Department said Thursday.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones expected 345,000 new claims for the week. The number of claims for the prior week was revised up to 341,000 from 338,000.
The four-week moving average of claims, which evens out choppy weekly data, rose by 8,500 to 357,250. Despite the gain, the level is still consistent with a modestly improving labor market.
Recent data suggests "layoffs probably haven't budged much over the past month," Royal Bank of Scotland economist Guy Berger wrote in a note to clients. However, he was cautious about reading too much into the figures.
The number of claims around the winter holiday season tends to be volatile. Holidays and big swings in unadjusted data toward the end of the year complicate seasonal adjustments for jobless claims. "We will probably have to wait until after the Martin Luther King Day holiday, toward the end of January, before we start getting clean initial claims data again," Mr. Berger wrote.
A Labor Department analyst said there was nothing unusual about the latest data and that all states reported figures for the Christmas week.
Meanwhile, Thursday's report showed 1.39 million people received special extended benefits during the Dec. 14 week under a federal program put in place in 2008. Those unadjusted figures are reported with a two-week lag.
Recipients in the program exhausted the roughly 26 weeks of unemployment benefits most states provide. The number of beneficiaries in the program declined by about 675,000 from a year earlier. The program expired last week despite President Barack Obama's support for an extension. It is possible lawmakers could reinstate the benefits when they return from holiday recess.
The number of continuing unemployment benefit claims in regular state programs fell by 98,000 to a seasonally adjusted 2,833,000 in the week ended Dec. 21.
Broadly, the labor market showed signs of improvement late in 2013. In November, U.S. payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 203,000, the Labor Department said. The job growth came in higher-paying sectors such as manufacturing and health care, in addition to retail and restaurant jobs, which had been growing steadily.
The December jobs report is scheduled for release Jan. 10.
The Federal Reserve pointed to the improving labor market as evidence the economy was strong enough for the central bank to start winding down its bond-buying program. The Fed said last month that it would reduce the size of purchases by $10 billion a month, taking a small first step away from a policy designed to boost economic growth.
Source: http://online.wsj.com
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