NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - New jobless claims fell in the United States last week, the government said Thursday, though their level still indicated weakness in the labor market following the economy's first recession in a decade.
The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to 411,000 in the week ended May 4 from a revised 422,000 the prior week, the Labor Department reported. It was the sixth straight week that claims were above 400,000, a level pointing to a sluggish job market. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 407,000 new claims.
"What this, in conjunction with the April unemployment report, shows is stabilization in the labor market and timid improvement," Kathleen Stephansen, director of economics at Credit Suisse First Boston, told CNNfn's CNNmoney Morning program. "By no means are we talking about a roaring improvement in the labor market."
Separately, the Labor Department said U.S. import prices rose 1.4 percent in April after rising a revised 1.2 percent in March. Export prices rose 0.4 percent after rising an unrevised 0.3 percent in March.
U.S. stock market futures were lower after the report, pointing to a negative opening on Wall Street following Wednesday's enormous gains. Treasury bond prices were slightly higher.
It's still unclear how many of last week's new unemployment claims were actually workers re-filing for benefits after Congress allowed an extension of benefits in March. The Labor Department has been unable to clearly separate new filers from re-filers.
The four-week moving average of new jobless claims, which smoothes out fluctuations in the weekly data, fell to 428,000 last week from a revised 436,500 the prior week.
But continued claims, the number of people who have been out of work for a week or more, rose to 3.8 million in the week ended April 27, the latest data available, from a revised 3.74 million the prior week.
The Labor Department said last week that the unemployment rate rose to 6 percent in April, its highest level in nearly 8 years.
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Unemployment is a lagging indicator, usually rising even as the economy recovers because businesses are reluctant to hire more workers until they know the recovery is real and that demand will justify more production.
To keep consumers spending despite surging unemployment, a recession, falling stock prices and the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the Federal Reserve cut its target for short-term interest rates 11 times in 2001. It has decided at its first four meetings of 2002 to leave rates at 40-year lows and could continue to do so until the labor market improves.
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