US Jobless Claims Increased Last Week

The number of Americans filing new applications for unemployment benefits increased last week, but remained near cycle lows in a sign that the jobs market was gaining steam.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 267,000 for the week ended July 25, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the prior week were unrevised at 255,000, which was the lowest level since November 1973.

A Labor Department analyst said there were no special factors influencing the data and that only claims for Puerto Rico had been estimated.

The four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends as it irons out week-to-week volatility, fell 3,750 to 274,750 last week.

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