U.S. Weekly Jobless Claims Unexpectedly Dip To 302,000

(RTTNews) - First-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly showed a modest decrease in the week ended July 12th, according to a report released by the Labor Department on Thursday.

The report said initial jobless claims edged down to 302,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised level of 305,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to climb to 310,000 from the 304,000 originally reported for the previous week.

The Labor Department also said its four-week moving average dipped to 309,000, a decrease of 3,000 from the previous week's revised average of 312,000.

With the modest decrease, the less volatile four-week moving average fell to its lowest level since hitting 307,500 in June of 2007.

Continuing claims, an indicator of the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also dropped to a seven-year low of 2.507 million in the week ended July 5th from the preceding week's revised level of 2.586 million.

Additionally, the four-week moving average of continuing claims fell to 2.559 million from 2.572 million, hitting its lowest level since October of 2007.

Peter Boockvar, managing director at the Lindsey Group, said, "Bottom line, claims at these levels support monthly job gains of around 200k+ and point to a continued improvement in the labor market."

"The issue however for economic growth is the drop in productivity as the hours added is not being offset by an equal or greater increase in output," he added.

Earlier this month, the Labor Department released a report showing much stronger than expected job growth in June.

The report said non-farm payroll employment jumped by 288,000 jobs in June following an upwardly revised increase of 224,000 jobs in May. Economists had expected employment to rise by 210,000 jobs.

The stronger than expected job growth helped push the unemployment rate down to 6.1 percent in June from 6.3 percent in May, hitting its lowest level since September of 2008.