NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - New jobless claims fell in the United States last week, the government said Thursday, matching Wall Street forecasts.
The Labor Department said 345,000 people filed new claims for state unemployment benefits in the week ended Feb. 28, compared with a revised 352,000 the prior week.
Economists, on average, expected 345,000 new claims, according to Briefing.com.
The four-week moving average of new claims, which irons out the volatility of the weekly data, slipped to 352,250 from a revised 355,250 the prior week.
Continued claims, the number of people out of work for a week or more, held steady at 3.1 million in the week ended Feb. 21, the latest data available.
On Wall Street, stock market futures were little changed after the report, pointing to a positive open. Treasury bond prices were slightly lower.
Though it usually takes a while for unemployment to fall once the economy's started growing again -- since employers are hesitant to start hiring until they believe the recovery is for real -- the United States has enjoyed nine straight quarters of growth, including the strongest performance in 20 years in the third quarter of 2003, without significant job creation.
In fact, since March 2001, when the 2001 recession began, more than 2.3 million payroll jobs have been lost, according to the Labor Department, making this recession/recovery period the most "jobless" since World War II.
Several indicators have been pointing up for the job market, including a steady, if slow, decline in weekly jobless claims, leading many economists to forecast greater job growth this year.
But some economists worry that structural changes in the job market, including technological advances and a growing appetite for cheap offshore labor, will keep hiring muted in 2004.
On Friday, the Labor Department reports on February unemployment and non-farm payroll growth. Economists, on average, believe unemployment held at 5.6 percent and that 125,000 new payroll jobs were created in February, according to Briefing.com.
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