US Jobless Claims Fall Signalling Solid Labor Market

The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, pointing to a solid labor market.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 15,000 to a seasonally adjusted 281,000 for the week ended July 11, the Labor Department said on Thursday.

The decline reversed the prior week’s rise and ended three straight weeks of increases.

Claims tend to be volatile during the summer when automakers normally shut assembly plants for annual retooling. However, some of the companies keep production running, which can throw off a model the government uses to smooth the data for seasonal fluctuations.

A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors influencing the data and no states had been estimated.

U.S. financial markets were little moved by the data.

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said on Wednesday that labor market conditions had “improved substantially,” but added that they were not yet consistent with maximum employment.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza