 | |  | | Jobless Claims Up Sharply in Latest Week
Thu June 5, 2003 08:32 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of people applying for U.S. initial jobless aid rose unexpectedly by 16,000 last week, a government report showed on Thursday, as gloom in the labor market persisted and layoffs continued.
First-time claims for state unemployment insurance benefits, a rough guide to the pace of layoffs, rose to 442,000 in the May 31 week, its highest in more than a month, compared with a revised 426,000 for the prior week, the Labor Department said.
The department said the calculation used to adjust for seasonal factors had difficulty accounting for last week's Memorial Day holiday, because so-called floating holidays, which do not fall on the same date every year, are difficult to model.
Analysts were expecting 420,000 first-time claims for the week ended May 31 compared with the 424,000 originally reported in the prior week.
The rise in state claims pushed up the four-week moving average, a more reliable indication of job market health because it smoothes out the weekly volatility in the weekly figures, to 430,500 from 427,500 in the prior week. In a sign the labor market is deteriorating, the data has remained above the key 400,000 mark for 14 weeks. |  |  |  |  |
|