Jobless Claims Drop by 10,000 to 332,000

The labor market continued to heal, as jobless claims declined again. In the week ending March 9, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 332,000, a decrease of 10,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 342,000. There were 340,102 initial claims in the comparable week in 2012. The 4-week moving average was 346,750, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week's revised average of 349,500. The four week moving average smooths out the volatility of the weekly claim figures. Next week's release of unemployment claims data will correspond to the reference week for the Bureau of Labor Statistics' twin surveys of both households and businesses for the Employment Situation report, released April 5. The steady decrease in initial unemployment claims shows that companies are laying off fewer people, and may be stepping up their hiring plans. The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.7% during the week ending March 2, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week's unrevised rate. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 3,474,738, a decrease of 136,324 from the preceding week's revised level of 3,611,062. A year earlier, the rate was 3.1 percent and the volume was 3,862,329. The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending February 23 was 5,619,860, an increase of 217,967 from the previous week. There were 7,424,041 persons claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week in 2012. These data are not seasonally adjusted, and are reported with a lag. The large drop in persons receiving extended and emergency unemployment claims reflects not just people finding work, but also those who see their benefits expire or who drop out of the labor force, such as to attend school or due to family obligations. The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending February 23 were in Alaska (6.2%), Puerto Rico (4.7%), Rhode Island (4.5%), Connecticut (4.2%), New Jersey (4.2%), Montana (4.1%), Pennsylvania (4.1%), Massachusetts (4.0%), Wisconsin (3.9%), California (3.7%), Illinois (3.7%), and Oregon (3.7%). The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending March 2 were in California (+11,720), New York (+7,900), Missouri (+2,722), Kansas (+1,419), and Washington (+813), while the largest decreases were in Massachusetts (-4,193), North Carolina (-1,146), Connecticut (-913), Michigan (-909), and Florida (-726).