The number of Americans filing first-time applications for state unemployment benefits declined to 339,000 last week, the lowest level in almost three years, the Labor Department said yesterday.þþInitial jobless claims fell 15,000 in the week that ended Saturday from 354,000 a week earlier, the Labor Department said. Last week's filings were the fewest since the week that ended Jan. 20, 2001, when President Bush took office.þþÿClaims are ratcheting down week by week, and if it keeps up like this, you could say that a sustainable recovery in the labor market is here,ÿ said Chris Rupkey, senior financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York. ÿThis bodes well for job gains in 2004.ÿþþClaims were forecast to fall to 350,000, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey of 22 economists, from the 353,000 initially reported for the week earlier. Forecasts ranged from 340,000 to 360,000.þþThe four-week moving average of claims, a less volatile indicator, declined to 355,750 from 362,250.þþThe number of people continuing to collect state jobless benefits rose to 3.315 million in the week that ended Dec. 20 from 3.234 million a week earlier. The four-week average of continuing claims dropped to 3.293 million, the lowest since the week ended Sept. 22, 2001.þþThe insured employment rate, which tends to track the jobless rate, held at 2.6 percent in the week ended Dec. 20. The Labor Department also said 26 states and territories had reported an increase in new claims, while the same number reported a drop. These data are reported with a one-week lag.þþConsumers are more optimistic this month about the outlook for employment than they are about the current job market. Consumer confidence last month slipped from a 14-month high as more Americans said jobs were hard to find, a report from the Conference Board, which is based in New York, showed yesterday. Still, 21.7 percent said they expected more jobs would become available in the next six months, the most since April 2002.þþÿThere is clearly a belief that the job market will turn around soon,ÿ said Rick Cobb, executive vice president of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement firm. In its telephone survey of 1,200 people, 50 percent said they expected to have a job within three months and 92 percent said they would probably have one by June.þþþþ
Source: NY Times
