New unemployment claims in the U.S. ticked up slightly in the week ended October 1st, according to figures released Thursday by the Labor Department, although claims rose by less than anticipated.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the level of new claims came in at 401,000 for the week, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level of 395,000. Most economists had expected jobless claims to come in somewhat higher at about 410,000.
While the previous week's figure was revised up slightly from the 391,000 initially reported, it remained below the 400,000 level that most economists believe is critical to bringing down the unemployment rate.
Peter Boockvar, equity strategist at Miller Tabak, said, "Employers still are taking a wait and see approach to the global events of the last few months as the pace of firings remain steady state around 400,000 and hiring's as seen in yesterday's ADP report remain below what is needed to absorb the monthly increases in the labor force."
Labor Department officials said that seasonal factors had predicted a small, 1.2 percent decline in new claims. The raw figures, however, showed a 0.3 percent increase, resulting in the uptick in the adjusted numbers.
The four-week moving average of initial claims, which reduces the week-to-week fluctuations, dropped by 4,000 to 414,000 from the previous week's revised level of 418,000.
The total number of people claiming unemployment insurance, a figure known as continuing claims, for the week ended September 24th dropped by 52,000 to 3.7 million from the previous week's revised level of 3.752 million.
The continuing claims figure came in somewhat below the 3.725 million most economists had expected.
The four-week average of continuing claims fell to 3.739 million, a drop of 9,750 from the previous week's revised average of 3,748,750.
Wednesday morning, payroll processor Automatic Data Processing, Inc. (ADP) released a report showing that employment in the private sector increased by more than expected in the month of September, although the pace of job growth remains moderate.
ADP said that private sector employment rose by 91,000 jobs in September following a downwardly revised increase of 89,000 jobs in August. Economists had expected employment to increase by about 75,000 jobs compared to the addition of 91,000 jobs originally reported for the previous month.
The stronger than expected private sector job growth generated some optimism about the outlook for Friday's monthly jobs report from the Labor Department, which includes government jobs.
The Labor Department's employment report is currently expected to show an increase of about 65,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate is expected to edge up to 9.2 percent.
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