Questa è CBS Market Watch
U.S. jobless claims fall in latest week
By Corbett B. Daly, CBS Marketwatch
Last Update: 10:13 AM ET Aug. 5, 2004
E-mail it | Print | Discuss | Alert | Reprint | RSS
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) -- The number of people filing for unemployment insurance for the first time fell by 11,000 to 336,000 in the week ended July 31, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The four-week average of new claims, which smoothes out distortions in the weekly figures caused by weather and other one-time factors, rose by 6,750 to 343,500, the highest level since the end of June. Read the full release.
The one-week figure was slightly below the 341,000 that had been expected by economists surveyed by CBS MarketWatch. See Economic Calendar.
Meanwhile, the number of Americans continuing to receive state unemployment benefits fell by 35,000 in the week ended July 24, to 2.91 million.
The nation's insured unemployment rate, measuring the percentage of claimants among those eligible for benefits, remained unchanged at 2.3 percent.
Surprising stability
After having plunged by about 60,000 in the second half of last year, the level of initial claims is largely unchanged over the past three months. Initial and continuing claims are now at levels consistent with job creation of about 150,000 to 250,000 jobs per month.
"The absence of volatility in the number of new filers in July has been surprising, with the apparent trend in claims during the period pretty much in line with results from the past three or four months," said Steve Stanley, economist at RBS Greenwich Capital Markets.
"Certainly, these data do not point to any shift in the underlying fundamentals of the labor market."
All eyes on Friday's payrolls report
The weekly jobless claims figures come just 24 hours before the Labor Department issues its monthly employment report for July.
Economists polled by CBS MarketWatch are currently expecting nonfarm payrolls to rise by about 235,000 in July after 112,000 new jobs were created in June.
"Jobless claims remain in the range that has prevailed since the beginning of March (when payroll creation accelerated markedly), and these data continue to suggest that the employment trend has not softened," said John Ryding, economist at Bear Stearns in New York.
Separately, Monster Worldwide said overall demand for workers and related online job recruitment activity fell slightly in July from its high for the year in June. The company's monthly index fell to 134 in July, the first monthly decline since December, from 136 in the prior month