NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Jobless claims fell in the United States last week, the government said Thursday, remaining below the key 400,000 level for the third straight week.
The Labor Department said 386,000 people filed for benefits in the week ended Oct. 18, compared with a revised reading of 390,000 in the prior week.
The number was mostly in line with economists' consensus average estimates of 385,000 new claims, according to Briefing.com.
"It shows the labor market is continuing to stabilize," Jay Bryson, a global economist for Wachovia Securities, told Reuters news agency. The general trend has been going down as claims have fallen 15,000 since mid-September.
New claims have fluctuated in a narrow range near the 400,000 mark since mid-July. Most economists consider new claims below the 400,000 threshold as a sign of a recovery. This is the third consecutive week the figure has been below that level.
"We did have a modest upward revision in the previous week's claims, but we remain under the psychologically important 400,000 level and that's definitely something that we've been looking for," said Patrick Fearon, an economist for A.G. Edwards.
"The drop in continuing claims could be a sign that the unemployment rate could start drifting downward," Fearon said.
Continued claims, the number of people out of work for a week or more, fell to 3.5 million for the week ended Oct. 11, the latest data available, from a revised 3.6 million the prior week.
The four-week moving average of new claims, which irons out the volatility of the weekly data, was unchanged at 392,250 in the week ended Oct. 18 from the prior week.
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