Washington, DC, November 9, 2006--Filings for initial state jobless claims benefits fell 20,000 to 308,000 last week, according to a Labor Department report.
The four-week average of new claims slipped by 250 to 311,250. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits in the week ending Oct. 28 rose by 43,000 to 2.45 million, a seven-week high.
The four-week average of continuing claims rose to 2.44 million.
The current level of initial and continuing claims is consistent with an unchanged unemployment rate and modest job growth, economists say.
In the past year, initial claims are down about 4% while continuing claims are down about 1%.
Initial claims represent job destruction, while the level of continuing claims indicates how hard or easy it is for displaced workers to find new jobs.
Long-term unemployment has been stubbornly high during this expansion, despite the decrease in the unemployment rate to 4.4%. In October, about a third of the 6.7 million official unemployed people had been out of work longer than 15 weeks, while 16% had been out of work longer than 27 weeks.
Typically, unemployment benefits run out after 26 weeks for those who are eligible. Those who exhaust their unemployment benefits are still counted as unemployed if they are looking for work.
