New applications for unemployment benefits dipped to 246,000 in the first full week of October, the Department of Labor reported Thursday, the lowest level since 1973.
Forecasters had expected claims to tick up modestly. Instead, in one of the brightest indicators for the economy recently, they dropped to a level not seen since the workforce was about half the size it is today.
Jobless claims numbers, which are adjusted for seasonal variations, are important to policymakers and to investors because they hint at the health of the labor market and are collected from state agencies and published weekly.
Low claims indicate that layoffs are rare, and accordingly that job creation is strong. The past few months’ very low levels of claims have gone along with resilient job growth. Over the past three months, payroll job gains have averaged 192,000, more than enough to keep the unemployment rate, currently at 5 percent, trending down.
Economists figure that claims of below 300,000 are consistent with a stable or falling unemployment rate. New claims haven’t hit that mark in 84 weeks, the longest such streak since 1970. Over the past month, new claims have averaged 249,250, also the lowest since 1973.
The Department of Labor said that there were no special factors influencing the claims in the week.
