U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Pull Back But Still Exceed Estimates

(RTTNews) - While the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing a modest drop in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended January 17th, initial jobless claims still came in above economist estimates.

The report said initial jobless claims fell to 307,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level of 317,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to slide to 300,000 from the 316,000 originally reported for the previous week.

The upwardly revised figure for the previous week represents the highest level for jobless claims since the week ended June 7, 2014.

The Labor Department noted that the four-week moving average climbed to 306,500, an increase of 6,500 from the previous week's revised average of 300,000.

With the increase, the less volatile four-week moving average rose to its highest level since hitting 309,250 last July.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, said, "Bottom line, the downward trend in claims has taken a pause and at least the numbers out of Texas the last few weeks may have something to do with it."

"Either way, the overall level of claims around 300,000 is certainly an historically low level but the impact in the oil/gas industry is obviously worth a close watch," he added.

Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also rose to 2.443 million in the week ended January 10th from the preceding week's revised level of 2.428 million.

The four-week moving average of continuing claims edged up to 2.427 million, an increase of 9,000 from the previous week's revised average of 2.418 million.