U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Edge Down To 294,000

(RTTNews) - First-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits saw a modest decrease in the week ended January 3rd, according to a report released by the Labor Department on Thursday.

The report said initial jobless claims edged down to 294,000, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 298,000. Economists had expected jobless claims to dip to 290,000.

The Labor Department also said the less volatile four-week moving average dipped to 290,500, a decrease of 250 from the previous week's unrevised average of 290,750.

On the other hand, the report said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, rose by 101,000 to 2.452 million in the week ended December 27th.

The four-week moving average of continuing claims still fell to 2.397 million from the preceding week's revised average of 2.414 million.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, said, "Bottom line, the level of firing's is still hovering near the lowest levels since 2000 and we should expect another good jobs figure tomorrow."

"But if the November spike proves to be an outlier and we see some give back in December, we should average the November/December time period to get the real state of trend," he added.

Friday morning, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its closely watched monthly employment report for December.

Economists expect employment to increase by about 245,000 jobs in December after jumping by 321,000 jobs in November.

The unemployment rate is expected to dip to 5.7 percent from 5.8 percent, hitting its lowest level since June of 2008.