New applications for unemployment insurance rose to 244,00 in the second week of April, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, up from an ultra-low 234,000 the week before.
Investors had expected jobless claims to rebound to around 242,000 after falling to the second-lowest level since 1973 in the previous week.
Thanks in part to new claims running low for so long, the total number of people receiving benefits of all durations fell to the lowest level in 17 years.
Just 1.98 million people received benefits in the first week of April, according to Thursday’s report, the lowest such number since April of 2000, during the dotcom bubble.
Markets and the Federal Reserve see low claims as a good sign for the economy. Fewer claims mean that fewer people are showing up to state agencies to collect unemployment benefits, suggesting that layoffs are scarce.
The strong jobless claims numbers in recent weeks have boosted expectations for growth this year, and for the Fed to continuing raising interest rates.
While the falling total number of people receiving benefits is also good news, it is more of a mixed bag. Benefits are now available for up to 26 weeks in most states.
But many people currently have been out of work for longer than that. In March, there were 1.7 million people who had been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, acording to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In comparison, there were just 600 million such long-term unemployed in April of 2000, meaning that the total continuing claims numbers don’t capture the full reality of today’s unemployment.
