The Housing Chronicles Blog: New claims for unemployment falls to lowest level since April 2011

Thursday, September 29, 2011

New claims for unemployment falls to lowest level since April 2011

According to a story at CNN, initial claims for unemployment levels fell to their lowest level since April. From the story:

The number of Americans filing for their first week of unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in nearly six months, possibly signaling slight improvement in the job market.

There were 391,000 initial unemployment claims filed in the week ended Sept. 24, the Labor Department said Thursday, down 37,000 from the prior week's revised 428,000.

The drop was much better than expected, as economists forecast initial claims to fall to 419,000, according to Briefing.com.

New claims for unemployment benefits have stuck around or above 400,000 since early April, a level economists often say is too high to signal the unemployment rate will come down anytime soon.

The recent drop to 391,000 maked the lowest level since the week of April 2, when 385,000 new claims came in.

Still, economists cautioned against getting too excited about the better number. It's just one week of data, and according to a government spokesman, seasonal adjustments could have impacted the calculation.

Click here for the CNN story.

Click here for the release from the U.S. Dept. of Labor.

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