NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - New weekly claims for jobless benefits in the United States rose last week, the government said Thursday, as the labor market struggled to recover from heavy job cuts last year.

The Labor Department said the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose to 411,000 in the week ended Oct. 12 from a revised 389,000 the prior week. Economists, on average, expected 398,000 new claims, according to Briefing.com.

Separately, the Commerce Department said housing starts jumped 13.3 percent in September to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.84 million units after falling a revised 1.5 percent in August. Economists, on average, expected housing starts to rise to a 1.64 million-unit pace, according to Briefing.com.

Building permits, a more leading indicator of demand for new homes, rose 3.7 percent to an annual rate of 1.73 million units after falling a revised 2.7 percent in August. Economists expected permits to be little changed at a 1.67 million-unit rate, according to Briefing.com.

And the Federal Reserve said industrial production fell 0.1 percent in September after falling 0.3 percent in August. Economists expected industrial production to rise 0.1 percent, according to Briefing.com.

The reports had little impact on U.S. stock prices, which rose in early trading. Treasury bond prices fell.

In the Labor Department report, the four-week moving average of new jobless claims, which smoothes out fluctuations in the weekly data, dipped to 408,750 last week from a revised 413,500 the prior week.

Continued claims, the number of people drawing benefits for more than a week, rose to 3.75 million in the week ended Oct. 5, the latest data available, from a revised 3.61 million the prior week.

It was the biggest jump in continued claims since a gain of 155,000 in the week of Nov. 25, 1995.

U.S. businesses cut about 1.8 million jobs during a recession that began in March 2001. With the economy slow to recover, stock markets volatile and the possibility of war in Iraq looming, businesses have been reluctant to hire more workers, leading economists to compare this recovery with the "jobless" recovery from the 1990-91 recession.

Despite all this, consumers have kept spending, keeping the economy afloat, since consumer purchases make up about two-thirds of the total economy.

Super-low mortgage rates have supported spending by fueling a boom of refinancing, putting more cash in homeowners' pockets.