Jobless claims drop sharply
By Ben Rooney, staff reporterFebruary 11, 2010: 8:42 AM ET
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance fell sharply last week, according to government data released Thursday.
There were 440,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Feb. 6, down 43,000 from a revised 483,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report.
Facebook Digg Twitter Buzz Up! Email Print Comment on this story
Economists were expecting initial claims to drop to 465,000, according to a consensus estimate from Briefing.com.
The government also said 4,538,000 people filed continuing claims in the week ended Jan. 30, the most recent data available. That's down 79,000 from the preceding week's revised 4,617,000 claims.
Economists were expecting continuing claims to have declined 2,000 to 4,600,000. |
