U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Dip To 235,000

(RTTNews) - The Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing a modest decline by first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended July 20th.

The report said initial jobless claims fell to 235,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised level of 245,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to dip to 238,000 from the 243,000 originally reported for the previous week.

Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average crept up to 235,500, an increase of 250 from the previous week's revised average of 235,250.

"In addition to weather, the claims data over the last several weeks have been subject to a variety of seasonal factors, but looking past the noise, the claims data are consistent with a labor market that is cooling but not collapsing," said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.

"The Federal Reserve is increasingly mindful of the downside risks to the labor market from keeping interest rates at current restrictive levels for too long," she added. "Our baseline continues to assume the first rate cut comes in September."

The report also said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, edged down by 9,000 to 1.851 million in the week ended July 13th.

The four-week moving average of continuing claims still rose to 1,853,500, an increase of 4,750 from the previous week's revised average of 1,848,750.

With the increase, the four-week moving average of continuing claims reached its highest level since hitting 1,859,750 in the week ended December 4, 2021.