First-time jobless claims extend slide

Fewer workers filed first-time claims for jobless benefits last week, reflecting stability in the labor market as businesses lay off fewer workers.

{mosads}Weekly applications for unemployment benefits decreased 6,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 275,000, continuing a six-month streak with claims below 300,000, the Department of Labor said Thursday.

Claims have maintained historic lows for most of this year and last eclipsed 300,000 in March.

The four-week average, a better gauge of the labor market’s health, increased 500 to 275,750.

The government reported last Friday that the U.S. economy added 173,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell to 5.1 percent in August, a figure that may convince the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates next week for the first time since 2008.

But while the Fed may be satisfied with improvements in the labor market, questions remain about inflation, which is below the central bank’s 2 percent target.

In recent weeks, some economists have expressed concern about the strength of the dollar, which has made U.S. exports more expensive abroad, falling oil prices that have hurt the energy sector, and the recent turbulence in stock markets caused by concerns about the slowing of China’s and the broader global economy.

The Fed will make the decision at their Sept. 16-17 meeting.

On Wednesday, a separate Labor Department report showed that job openings, another a figure watched by the Fed’s policymakers, hit a record 5.75 million in July, up 8 percent over June.

But employers pulled back on hiring, adding slightly less than 5 million workers, down from nearly 5.2 million in June, creating some concern about the trajectory of the labor market.

Some economists argue that job openings and hiring tend to move toward each other in a tightening labor market, indicating that there is still slack to be picked up, a component that the Fed watches carefully.

Overall, the largest increases in initial claims for the week ending August 29 were in New York (+4,642), Ohio (+1,027), Indiana (+824), Oregon (+809) and Illinois (+586), while the largest decreases were in Pennsylvania (-1,549), California (- 1,301), Michigan (-703), Puerto Rico (-636) and New Jersey (-545).