WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in mid-November leaped by 18,000 to 251,000, but the increase comes just one week after initial claims fell to 43-year low in a reflection of a sharply improved labor market.
Economists polled by MarketWatch had forecast initial claims to rise to a seasonally adjusted 248,000 in the week running from Nov. 13 to Nov. 19. Most of the increase appeared to take place in California and Illinois.
Initial jobless claims are still extremely low despite the latest uptick. They fell under 300,000 in early 2015 and have remained below that key threshold for 90 straight weeks. That’s the longest streak since 1970.
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The economy has been adding about 180,000 new jobs a month in 2016 and the unemployment has fallen to a post-recession low of 4.9%.
The less volatile four-week average of initial claims, seen as a more accurate measure of labor-market trends, fell 2,000 to 251,000, the Labor Department said Wednesday.
Continuing jobless claims, meanwhile, climbed 60,000 to 2.43 million in the week ended Nov. 12. In early November they briefly sank below the 2 million mark for the first time since 2000.
These claims, reported with a one-week delay, reflect the number of people already collecting unemployment checks.
