A day ahead of the release of the more closely watched monthly jobs report, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits came in unchanged in the week ended June 1st.
The Labor Department said initial jobless claims came in at 218,000, unchanged from the previous week’s revised level.
Economists had expected jobless claims to come in unchanged compared to the 215,000 originally reported for the previous week.
The report said the less volatile four-week moving average edged down to 215,000, a decrease of 2,500 from the previous week’s revised average of 217,500.
On the other hand, the Labor Department said continue claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, rose by 20,000 to 1.682 million in the week ended May 25th.
The four-week moving average of continuing claims still slipped to 1,672,750, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week’s revised average of 1,673,750.
On Friday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its more closely watched report on the employment situation in the month of May.
Employment is expected to climb by 185,000 jobs in May after surging up by 263,000 jobs in April, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 3.6 percent.
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