Initial Jobless Claims Fall by 18,000 in Week

Washington, DC, May 8, 2008--The number of people filing for the first time for unemployment benefits fell by 18,000 to 365,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis in the week ended May 3, the Labor Department said.

Initial claims have swung between 345,000 and 406,000 in recent weeks. The four-week average of initial claims, which smoothes out one-time factors such as bad weather or holidays, moved up by 2,500 to 367,500.
 
There is evidence that in the current downturn employers, rather than laying off workers, have been cutting hours and forcing them to work part-time.

In April, the number of people working part-time rose by 306,000 to 5.2 million, up 19 percent from last year.

The number of people collecting unemployment benefits fell by 10,000 to 3.02 million in the week ended April 26.

In April, 1.35 million of the 7.63 million people officially marked as unemployed had been out of work for longer than six months.