The number of Americans initially applying for unemployment aid went down last week and remained near historically low levels, U.S. Labor Department said Thursday.
In the week ending on Nov. 1, the advance figure of seasonally adjusted initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 10,000 to 278, 000, near a 14-year low of 266,000 touched three weeks ago, the department said. It marked the eighth straight week that the figure has been below 300,000.
Meanwhile, the four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of the underlying trend of labor market conditions, dropped by 2,250 to 279,000, the lowest level since April 2000.
The advance figure of seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending on Oct. 25 stood at 2.348 million, the smallest since December 2000.
The Labor Department will release its jobs report for October Friday. In September, the U.S. economy added 248,000 jobs and the unemployment rate declined to a six-year low of 5.9 percent, pointing to a strengthening job market.