NEW YORK, Nov 6 - The following are comments by debt and foreign exchange analysts on Thursday after the U.S. Labor Department reported jobless claims fell to 348,000 in the week of November 1, from a revised 391,000 the previous week. Weekly jobless claims are now at their lowest level since January 20, 2001. The four week average for jobless claims fell to 380,000 in the November 1 week, down from 390,000 the prior week.
Continued claims fell to 3,511,000 in the week of October 25, from a revised 3,533,000 the prior week. The Labor Department also reported non-farm productivity jumped 8.1 percent in the third quarter, compared to a rise of 7.0 pct in the second quarter. Unit labor costs fell 4.6 percent in the third quarter, compared to a fall of 3.2 percent the prior quarter. Third quarter productivity rose by the largest amount since the first quarter of 2002.
PETER FRANK, SENIOR FOREIGN EXCHANGE STRATEGIST, ABN AMRO BANK, CHICAGO: "As soon as the (jobless claims) number came out, the dollar has rallied. The most impressive performance has been against the euro. I suppose one can now expect a good payrolls report tomorrow. The market expectation of 40,000 (rise in non-farm payrolls) now seems to be a bit on the conservative side."
JADE ZELNIK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, RBS GREENWICH CAPITAL MARKETS INC., GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT:. "The strong productivity gains of the last two quarters have been cyclical, probably reflecting businesses' reluctance to start hiring at the first sign of strengthening of activity, but gains of this magnitude, 7 percent in the second quarter and 8.1 in the third, are clearly well above the long term trend and unsustainable.
"So the fact we're begin to see increases in payrolls suggests that firms are in fact finding productivity gains harder to come by and I think the large drop in (jobless) claims we saw today feeds into that picture and confirms that firms have begun to hire and employment has turned up. At this stage, job growth is probably still insufficient to absorb slack in the labor markets but it certainly looks like job growth was sustained in October and continues to strengthen as we move into November." //