WASHINGTON — U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell last week as layoffs remain sparse despite a softening labor market and rising energy costs due to the Iran war.
The number of Americans applying for jobless aid for the week ending March 28 fell by 9,000 to 202,000 from the previous week’s 211,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 212,000 new filings analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting and within the range of the past several years.
Filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.
The four-week moving average of jobless claims, which evens out some of the weekly swings, declined by 3,000 to 207,750.
The total number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits for the previous week ending March 21 jumped by 25,000 to 1.84 million, the government said.
