The number of Americans filing applications for jobless benefits fell marginally last week to near a 49-year low, pointing to underlying strength in the labor market.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 1,000 to a seasonally adjusted 216,000 for the week ended December 22, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
Initial claims have now fallen in three of the last four weeks and are just above the 49-year low of 202,000 reached in the week ended Sept. 15.
After several years of near-steady falls, claims trended higher between mid-September and mid-December, prompting concern the U.S. economy was losing a step.
It remains unclear how much of that increase was related to the difficulty government statisticians have in adjusting the claims data for seasonal swings. Claims can be volatile at the end of the year when U.S. holidays throw off a model that the government uses to smooth the data for seasonal fluctuations.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims increasing to 217,000 in the latest week.
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