U.S. Continuing Claims Hit Highest Since 1982, Initial Claims Drop Last Week

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - U.S. weekly initial jobless claims for insurance dropped unexpectedly by 24,000 to 467,000, during the week ending Jan. 3, according to the data released by the Labor Department on Thursday. The claims were up by almost 42 percent from a year ago period.

Last week, the weekly jobless claims hit three-month low and compared to the expectations of the claims to jump to 550,000.

The four-week average of initial jobless claims moved down by 27,000 to 525,750 last week, compared to the claims at 552,750 the week prior, the report showed.

The four-week average, which smoothens out the weekly volatility, was up by as much as 53 percent from the prior year for the week ending Jan. 3.

The continuing number of individuals collecting regular state unemployment benefits moved up by 101,000 to a seasonally adjusted 4.61 million in the week ending Dec. 27, which was the most since November 1982 level.

The four-week average of continuing claims increased 45,000 to 4.47 million, which is at the highest level since December 1982., the report showed on Thursday.

Today's report showed that there were 32 states and territories reported a decrease in initial jobless claims. The rest 21 registered a increase in the unemployment claims for the Dec. 27 week.

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending Dec. 27 were in Wisconsin with 16,081, followed by Michigan (10,524), Kansas (10,485), Massachusetts (10,265), and New Jersey (7,330)

While, the largest decreases were reported in Texas (13,232), California (9,702), Florida (8,566), Virginia (5,943), and South Carolina (4,678) in the same week.

The Labor Department report on Thursday showed the unemployment rate for workers with unemployment insurance, which tends to track the U.S. jobless rate, remained unchanged at 3.4 percent, which is the highest since early 1980s, for the week ending Dec. 27.

In November, the unemployment rate increased to 6.7 percent, pushing up the total number of jobs cut by the firms in different sectors to 1.9 million jobs during the eleven consecutive months in 2008.

U.S. companies fired as many as 533,000 jobs in the month of November, which is the highest since 1974, the Labor department reported.

On Friday, the government is scheduled to release data for December jobs losses in a report, which the economists are expecting to show a drop of 475,000 jobs last month, with the jobless rate to jump to 7 percent from 6.7 percent in November.