New claims for unemployment benefits edged up by 2,000 to 244,000 in the third week of June, the Department of Labor reported Thursday.
Forecasters had expected jobless claims to hold steady at about 241,000, adjusted for seasonal variations.
With Thursday’s report, jobless claims remain very low by historical standards, a good sign for continued job growth.
In the past three months, payroll job growth has averaged 121,000, a slowdown from earlier in the year but still enough to eclipse population growth and keep unemployment headed down. At 4.3 percent in May, unemployment was the lowest it has been since 2001.
Unemployment remains high in some states, such as Alaska and New Mexico, both of which have jobless rates above 6 percent. Nevertheless, other states are enjoying record low unemployment rates in the 2 percent to 3 percent range, and the signs are mounting that, in parts of the U.S., it’s getting hard to find workers.
Job openings hit the highest level on record in April, at the same time that jobless claims were bottoming out.
The total number of people receiving unemployment checks, which are available for up to 26 weeks in most states, held below 2 million in mid-June. The last time such continuing claims ran below 2 million for an extended period of time was 1973, when the labor force was much smaller.
