New claims for jobless insurance benefits in the United States posted their biggest jump in about two months, government data showed Thursday, underscoring unemployment concerns even amid economic recovery.
The seasonally adjusted initial claims in the week ending January 16 rose for the third consecutive week to 482,000, an increase of 36,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 446,000, the Labor Department said.
It was the third straight week of increase. Most economists had forecast that claims would be around 440,000 as the world’s largest economy emerged from its worst recession in decades.
The four-week moving average, a less volatile indicator than the week-to-week figures, was 448,250, an increase of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 441,250.
The latest data, however, showed a fall in the total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits.
The number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending January 9 was 4.599 million, a decrease of 18,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 4.617 million.
Government data in early January showed US employers had cut 85,000 jobs in December while the unemployment rate held at 10.0 percent.
More than seven million Americans lost their jobs in the recession and nearly 25 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed because they could not find full time work, or have given up looking for work, latest data showed.
The US economy grew at a 2.2 percent pace in the third quarter of 2009, reversing four quarters of contraction, latest governmet figures showed.
