Initial Jobless Claims Rise

Washington, DC, June 17, 2012--Initial jobless claims rose by 12,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday.

Also, the previous week's initial claims were revised higher by 4,000 to 460,000 as more complete data were collected.

The jobless claims report shows that the level of layoffs, while down from the peak a year ago, is too high to be consistent with robust job growth. The economy is creating jobs, but too few to bring the unemployment rate down meaningfully.

The four-week average of new claims was roughly unchanged at 463,500. The four-week average is considered a better gauge of labor-market conditions than the volatile weekly number, which can be influenced by non-economic factors such holidays, weather or strikes.

Meanwhile, the total number of people collecting unemployment benefits of any kind fell by 350,000 to 9.47 million in the week ending May 29 from 9.82 million.

Initial claims are down about 24% compared with the same week a year ago but are unchanged since the first of the year. Continuing claims are down about 29% compared with a year ago and down about 9% since the first of the year.

Jobless claims measure only a portion of the labor market--those who lose jobs through no fault of their own. But they don't measure the number of people being hired, or the number who quit their jobs voluntarily.