The Labor Department reported Thursday that unemployment benefits fell by 8,000 to 355,000 last week. According to the Labor Department analysis,the Sandy stormed the Atlantic Coast claims data a “little bit” but called this effect a “mixed bag” proving that there were some additional claims because of the storm but at the same time some people were not able to file because of the weather conditions.
The previous weeks claims data was unchanged at 363,000.
The drop in claims was better than expected and Labor Department reported that seasonal factors expected a rise of 6.9% in unadjusted claims in the November 3 week. Instead, unadjusted claims rose by 4.6% to a level of 355,406 in the current week. Unadjusted claims were at a level of 402,532 in the comparable week a year ago.
The initial claims seasonally adjusted average was 370,500 in the November 3 week vs 3,250 in the previous week. Continuing claims are at 3.127 million after seasonal adjustement, a decline of 135,000 from the previous week. Unadjusted continuing claims fell 94,962 to 2,742,581 in the week, and remains below 3,210,417 as compared to same week a year ago.
The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment fell to 2.4% from 2.5% and remains below the 2.9% rate in the comparable week a year earlier
The Labor Department reported about a total of 5,077,231 persons claimed unemployment benefits in the October 20 week, an increase of 41,864 from the previous week and below the 6,835,604 persons in the comparable week a year ago. The data are not seasonally adjusted, and include regular state claims as well as other groups.