The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits last week fell by the most in three months as the job market continues to show resilience despite high interest rates.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that applications for jobless claims fell by by 19,000 to 241,000 for the week of Oct. 12. That’s well below the 262,000 analysts were expecting.
Applications for jobless benefits are widely considered representative of U.S. layoffs in a given week.
The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, rose by 4,750 to 236,250.
The total number of Americans collecting jobless benefits rose by 9,000 to about 1.87 million for the week of Oct. 5.