Unexpectedly....
By SARAH N. LYNCH, TOM BARKLEY And JEFF BATER
In yet another troublesome sign for the labor markets, the number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly surged last week to the highest level in over three months.
Total claims lasting more than one week, meanwhile, also increased.
Separately, durable-goods demand soared in January, rising twice what was expected because of airplane orders, while a sign of future demand went up for the first time in more than a year.
Initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 22,000 to 496,000 in the week ended Feb. 20, according to the Labor Department's weekly report Thursday. The previous week's level was revised upward to 474,000 from 473,000. That brings claims to their highest levels since Nov. 14 of 2009.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires expected initial claims to decrease by 13,000.
The four-week moving average, which aims to smooth volatility in the data, also rose for the week ending Feb. 20. The Labor Department said the four-week moving average went up by 6,000 to 473,750 from the previous week's revised average of 467,750.
A Labor Department economist said Thursday that the increases in claims last week were due in part to an administrative backlog in the states that were hit hard by major snow storms earlier in the month and also because the storms left people temporarily without work.
Despite recent figures showing that lay-offs are abating, economists agree that the jobs market is still not fully recovered and it may take years for the U.S. to regain all the jobs lost in the recession.
Addressing the National Governors Association earlier this week, Moody's Economy.com Chief Economist Mark Zandi told an audience that claims must fall to around 400,000 in order to be consistent with a stable market. To be consistent with enough job growth, he said, claims would have to then tumble to around 350,000.
In response to the stubbornly high unemployment, both the Obama administration and Congress have pushed the issue to the top of their political agenda. On Wednesday the U.S. Senate approved a $15 billion bill with bipartisan support aimed at spurring job creation. At the bill's core is a tax credit for employers who hire new workers.
In the Labor Department's Thursday report, the number of continuing claims -- those drawn by workers for more than one week in the week ended Feb. 13 -- increased by 6,000 to 4,617,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,611,000.
The unemployment rate for workers with unemployment insurance for the week ended Feb. 13 was 3.5% -- unchanged from the prior week's unrevised rate.
The largest increase in initial claims for the week ended Feb. 13 was in North Carolina due to layoffs in the construction, furniture, mining and stone, clay and glass industries. The largest decrease in initial claims occurred in California.
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The propaganda and misdirection in this article is fucking hilarious.
-"Unexpectedly" is used once again to characterize an awful jobs market that has been awful for the last several years.
-Jobless Claims at highest levels since November of 2009.
-More propaganda about the useless and wasteful jobs bill. Why hire new workers if they aren't needed?. If there is no demand? If your small business is hanging on by a thread and you've cut everyone already because they aren't needed?
-Another clever use of the "4 week moving average"...the numbers still can't be massaged, though.
-"Lay-Offs are abating"? Huh? If they are "abating" why do you need another Jobs Bill that brides businesses to hire workers they don't need/want/afford?
-And the best nugget "A Labor Department economist said Thursday that the increases in claims last week were due in part to an administrative backlog in the states that were hit hard by major snow storms earlier in the month and also because the storms left people temporarily without work." I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at this...snow storms? Pushing the numbers to a 3 month high? And of course they use the generalized "Labor Dept. Economist" to drop the "truth" on us.
