A day before the release of the closely watched monthly employment report, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing an unexpected drop in first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended October 1st.
The report said initial jobless claims fell to 249,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's unrevised level of 254,000.
The modest decline came as a surprise to economists, who had expected initial jobless claims to inch up to 256,000.
With the unexpected decrease, jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting a more than four decade low in mid-April.
The Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average also dipped to 253,500, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week's unrevised average of 256,000.
The drop pulled the four-week moving average down to its lowest level since hitting 252,250 in December of 1973.
Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, fell by 6,000 to 2.058 million in the week ended September 24th.
The Labor Department said the decrease pulled continuing claims down to their lowest level since dropping to 2.052 million in the week ended July 1, 2000.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims also slid to a sixteen-year low of 2,094,750, a decrease of 21,000 from the previous week's revised average of 2,115,750.
Friday morning, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its more closely watched report on the employment situation in the month of September.
Employment is expected to increase by about 168,000 jobs in September after climbing by 151,000 jobs in August. The unemployment rate is expected to hold at 4.9 percent.
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