WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - A report released by the Labor Department on Thursday showed first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell in the week ended June 21st.
The Labor Department said initial jobless claims dipped to 236,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level of 246,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to come in unchanged compared to the 245,000 originally reported for the previous week.
'Initial jobless claims slipped in the latest week, but layoff notices suggest we could see a pickup in job losses and initial claims in the weeks ahead,' said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.
She added, 'For now, we don't think the labor market is weak enough to prompt the Fed to cut rates before December, but the risk is increasing that once the Fed starts to lower rates, it will have some catching up to do and will start with a 50bps rate cut.'
The report said the less volatile four-week moving average also edged down to 245,000, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average of 245,750.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, climbed by 37,000 to 1.974 million in the week ended June 14th.
With the increase, continuing claims reached their highest level since hitting 2.041 million in the week ended November 6, 2021.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims also reached its highest level since November 2021, rising by 16,750 to 1.941 million.
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