Jobless claims drop to new 4-year low

By msnbc.com staff and news wires

New claims for unemployment benefits dropped to a fresh four-year low, showing that the job market continues to strengthen.

The Labor Department said Thursday that jobless claims fell 5,000 to a seasonally-adjusted 359,000 in the week ended March 24, the lowest since April 2008, when the economy was in the depths of the recession. The four-week moving average dropped 3,500 to 368,500.

The department also made its annual revisions to the past five years of unemployment benefits data. The revisions increased the number of unemployment benefit applicants in recent months. But the downward trend remains intact.

When unemployment benefit applications drop consistently below 375,000, it usually signals that hiring is strong enough to lower the unemployment rate. The decline has coincided with the best three months of hiring in two years.

Employers added 227,000 jobs to their payrolls in February, taking the tally for the past three months to 734,000. A report on jobs growth during March is due on April 6. A Labor Department official said there was nothing unusual in the state-level data and only two states - Alaska and Hawaii - had been estimated.

The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid fell 41,000 to 3.34 million in the week ended March 17, the lowest since August 2008.

A total of 7.153 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during the week ended March 10 under all programs, down 131,488 from the prior week.

Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source: http://economywatch.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/29/10919798-jobless-claims-drop-to-new-4-year-low

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