The number of individuals filing new claims for unemployment insurance fell slightly in the latest week, but remain high enough to suggest the labor market is still in contraction, economists say. The number of first-time claims filed in the week ending June 14 fell by 5,000 to 381,000. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters IFR Markets were expecting claims to fall further, to 375,000. Despite the smaller-than-expected decline in the latest week, the level of initial claims are still in recession territory, "at least if the experience of 2001 is a guide," said Ian Shepherdson of High Freqency Economics. He noted that the eight-week moving average of claims in early March -- the very beginning of the recession in that year -- totalled just 362,000, with claims rising rapidly thereafter. Shepherdson says he doesn't expect that to happen in the current downturn, "but the key point here is that the pace of layoffs is now quite high, with no prospect of any reversal or even a levelling-off in the near future." Even so, claims "remain low enough to suggest the contraction in the economy has thus far been shallow," said Tony Crescenzi of Miller Tabak Meanwhile, the four-week moving average for initial claims increased by 3,250 to 375,250, the highest level since April 12. Economists prefer the four-week moving average because it smooths out fluctuations in weekly data.