Friday November 30, 1:30 AM
US weekly jobless claims surge 54,000 to 488,000
sg.biz.yahoo.com
The queue of people making new claims for jobless benefits surged 54,000 to 488,000 last week, the government said, reversing four weeks of declines.
The number of people already claiming unemployment benefits for at least two weeks hit a 19-year high of more than four million, the Labor Department figures showed.
The rise in initial claims in the week to November 24 was sharper than had been expected by Wall Street, where economists had been forecasting an increase of 16,000.
In raw figures, new claims rose 13,283 to 434,662.
The number of fresh applications surged after the economy took a hit on September 11 from suicide attacks that toppled New York's World Trade Center and killed thousands.
But the figures had been easing off since. The latest rise reversed four straight weekly declines.
A Labor Department spokeswoman said the figures were more volatile in holidays as many people delayed making claims. This year's Thanksgiving holiday fell on November 22.
A four-week moving average of initial jobless claims declined 2,000 to 454,000 in the week to November 24 -- the lowest average since the week ended September 22.
In the previous week to November 17, the number of people making claims for two weeks or more surged 301,000 to 4.02 million -- the highest figure since December 1982.
Initial jobless claims for that week fell a revised 8,000 to 434,000, compared with the initial estimate of a decline of 15,000 to 427,000. |
