New claims for US unemployment benefits jumped last week, in line with market expectations, as employers shed payrolls to cope with the severe recession, government data showed Thursday.
The Labor Department said that first-time claims for unemployment insurance benefits rose to a seasonally adjusted 554,000 in the week ended July 18, after a revised 524,000 in the preceding week.
The average consensus forecast was for 557,000 initial claims.
"It's the third or fourth week of a lot of volatility in our series," a department statistician said.
Over the preceding three weeks, initial jobless claims had fallen by a cumulative total of 106,000.
