Washington, DC, January 5, 2006-- The number of people filing for unemployment benefits dropped by 35,000 to a seasonally adjusted 291,000 in the week ending Dec. 31, the lowest since September 2000, according to a Labor Department report.
The four-week moving average of new claims, which smoothes out some of the weekly volatility, fell by 9,750 to 316,750, the lowest since Aug. 20, just before Hurricane Katrina leveled much of the Gulf Coast.
Before the most recent decline, new claims had stabilized in the past two months in a tight band between 320,000 and 335,000 after surging to 435,000 after the hurricanes.
