More Americans Than Projected Filed Jobless Claims Last Week
By Shobhana Chandra - Apr 19, 2012 8:30 AM
More Americans than forecast filed applications for unemployment benefits last week, a sign the improvement in labor-market conditions may be stalling.
Jobless claims fell by 2,000 to 386,000 in the week ended April 14 from a revised 388,000 the prior period that was higher than initially estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 47 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News called for a drop to 370,000. Revisions to previous data have been larger than normal and the government is trying to determine the cause, a Labor Department spokesman said as the figures were released to the press.
The claims figures raise the possibility the payroll gains that have helped push unemployment down to a three-year low may cool, weighing on consumer spending. Federal Reserve officials, awaiting evidence of a more robust job market and economic growth, have said they’ll keep borrowing costs low through 2014.
“We really need job growth to accelerate,” Ryan Sweet, a senior economist at Moody’s Analytics Inc. in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said before the report. “If the labor market shows fatigue, it will weigh on consumer sentiment and wages and spending.”
Estimates in the Bloomberg survey ranged from 350,000 to 390,000. The Labor Department revised the previous week’s figure up from 380,000. After being revised up to 370,000 from an initial estimate of 360,000, the week before that was revised back down to 362,000, today’s figures showed.
more @ Bloomberg.com
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