U.S. jobless claims down to 400,000

U.S. jobless claims down to 400,000

2011-08-04 23:49:54 GMT+7 (ICT)

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) -- Initial claims for unemployment insurance in the U.S. dropped to 400,000 in the week ending July 30, which represents only a slight decrease of 1,000 compared to the previous week, the U.S. Labor Department (DOL) said on Thursday.

The latest DOL report shows that the 4-week moving average was 407,750, a decrease of 6,750 from the previous week's revised average of 414,500. In addition, the department also revealed that those unemployed with unemployment insurance for the week ending July 23 was unchanged compared to the previous week's 3.0 percent rate.

Furthermore, according to the DOL document, there was an increase of 10,000 in the number of workers who claimed benefits under regular state unemployment programs, totaling 3,730,000 during the week ending July 23, while the 4-week moving average was 3,729,750, an increase of 4,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,725,250.

Meanwhile, the unadjusted, advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, totaled 339,348 in the week ending July 30, a decrease of 29,939 from the previous week. There were 402,140 initial claims in the comparable week in 2010. The total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending July 16 was 7,570,439, a decrease of 75,192 from the previous week.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending July 16 were in Puerto Rico (5.0), Pennsylvania (4.5), California (4.0), New Jersey (4.0), Alaska (3.9) Oregon (3.9), Connecticut (3.8), Rhode Island (3.8), Nevada (3.7) and Arizona (3.5).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 23 were in Maine (+77), Wyoming (+34), North Dakota (+30), New Mexico (+13), and South Dakota (+3) while the largest decreases were in California (-23,689), New York (-8,037), North Carolina (-7,511), Georgia (-6,399), and South Carolina (-5,837).

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