U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Pull Back From More Than Eight-Month High

After reporting a notable increase in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the previous week, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing jobless claims pulled back roughly in line with estimates in the week ended May 11th.

The Labor Department said initial jobless claims fell to 222,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week’s revised level of 232,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to fall to 220,000 from the 231,000 originally reported for the previous week.

The pullback came after jobless claims rose to their highest level since the week ended August 26, 2023 in the previous week.

“Initial claims for unemployment insurance benefits have been choppy over the past couple of weeks because of distortions caused by the timing of school spring breaks,” said Ryan Sweet, Chief U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.

He added, “The decline in new filings in the week ended May 11 reverses some of the gain in the prior week but does not alter our assessment of the current state of the labor market, which remains strong because layoffs are still low.”

Meanwhile, the report said the less volatile four-week moving average rose to 217,750, an increase of 2,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 215,250.

Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also climbed by 13,000 to 1.794 million in the week ended May 4th.

The four-week moving average of continuing claims still edged down to 1,779,250, a decrease of 750 from the previous week’s revised average of 1,780,000.

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