NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - New jobless claims edged down last week, the government said Thursday, coming in a shade above forecasts on Wall Street.
The Labor Department said 342,000 people filed new claims for state unemployment benefits in the week ended March 27, compared with a revised 345,000 the prior week. Economists, on average, expected 340,000 new claims last week, according to Briefing.com.
The numbers were released a day before the department's widely awaited monthly jobs report for March, due Friday.
The closely watched four-week moving average of initial jobless claims, which irons out weekly fluctuations, was unchanged at 340,250, the lowest in more than three years.
Continued claims, the number of people out of work for a week or more, rose slightly to 3.06 million in the week ended March 20, the latest data available, from 3.03 million the prior week.
The report had little impact on U.S. stock market futures, which were mixed in before-hours trading. Treasury bond prices fell slightly.
On Friday, the Labor Department is set to release its readings on March unemployment and payroll growth outside the farm sector. Economists, on average, expect the unemployment rate held steady at 5.6 percent and that 123,000 new jobs were added in March.
Payrolls are about 2.3 million jobs lower than they were in March 2001, when the job market peaked and a recession began, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. That marks the longest stretch without net job growth since the Labor Department started keeping track in 1939.
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