In a bit of positive news for the struggling job market, the U.S. Labor Department said Wednesday that the number of people who filed for unemployment benefits fell below 500,000 last week.
According to government figures, initial jobless claims fell by a seasonally-adjusted 35,000 claims to 466,000 for the week ending Nov. 21. It was the first time that unemployment claims were below 500,000 so far this year.
Last week's initial claims fell by more than the 5,000-person drop that economists had forecasted, according to data by Thomson Reuters.
Continuing claims, which are people unemployment insurance for more than a week, fell by 190,000 to 5.423 million according to the Labor Department.
Initial claims also cross another psychological threshold in this report, now lower than they were before the September 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers. While most of the news in the labor market has been dismal – the nation registered a 10.2% unemployment rate this month – most economists believe real-time indicators like jobless claims are starting to show real progress.
“While it is always difficult to predict when monthly payrolls will show growth, it is quite apparent that month is closer rather than further away,” said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist with Miller Tabak.
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