Continuing to rebound from a recent pullback, first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly climbed back above the 300,000 level in the week ended February 7th.
The Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing that initial jobless claims climbed to 304,000, an increase of 25,000 from the previous week's revised level of 279,000.
Economists had expected jobless claims to rise to 288,000 from the 278,000 originally reported for the previous week.
With the increase, jobless claims further offset the sharp drop seen in the week ended January 24th, which was partly due to seasonal issues around the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday.
On the other hand, the Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average fell to 289,750, a decrease of 3,250 from the previous week's revised average of 293,000.
Continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also tumbled to 2.354 million in the week ended January 31st from the preceding week's revised level of 2.405 million.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims dipped to 2,404,000, a decrease of 18,500 from the previous week's revised average of 2,422,500.
Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, said, "Bottom line, notwithstanding the move back above 300k, the low level of firing's continues to support an improving labor market."
Last Friday, the Labor Department released a separate report showing stronger than expected job growth in the month of January.
The report said non-farm payroll employment rose by 257,000 jobs in January compared to economist estimates for an increase about 230,000 jobs.
Nonetheless, the Labor Department also said the unemployment rate unexpectedly edged up to 5.7 percent in January from 5.6 percent in December. The rate had been expected to remain unchanged.
The unexpected uptick by the unemployment rate reflected a substantial increase by the size of the labor force, which surged up by 1.05 million people.
The jump by the size of the labor force outpaced a still-impressive 759,000 person increase by the household survey measure of employment.
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