Washington, DC, April 13, 2006--Initial applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly rose by 12,000 to 313,000 in the week ending April 8, the Labor Department said Thursday.
It is the highest level of claims since the week ended March 11.
The number of people collecting unemployment benefits rose by 29,000 to 2.50 million in the week ending Feb. 25. It's up from the five-year revised low of 2.47 million for the prior week.
The four-week average of new claims, that smoothes out the data to reduce the impact of one-time events such as storms or holidays, fell by 1,500 to 307,500.
Economists expected a slight increase in initial claims to about 305,000.
Claims in the previous week were revised up slightly to 301,000 from the initial estimate of 299,000.
