Fewer Americans than projected filed applications for unemployment benefits last week as disruptions caused by superstorm Sandy waned.
Jobless claims decreased by 25,000 to 370,000 in the week ended Dec. 1, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 52 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for a drop to 380,000. A Labor Department spokesman said there was nothing unusual in last week’s data.
The mid-Atlantic region, which employs about 14 percent of U.S. workers, is recovering after Sandy. Apart from the storm- related damage -- which may also be reflected in the November payrolls report tomorrow -- employers will probably curb hiring until the risks from the global slowdown and looming U.S. fiscal tightening dissipate.
“There are a lot of things going on that make the data less reliable,” Kevin Cummins, an economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, said before the report. At the same time, “there’s a lot of uncertainty heading into the fiscal cliff. It’s hard to say what the underlying trend in claims is going to be.”
Claims dropped by almost 24,000 in New Jersey two weeks ago and by 6,682 in New York, the two states most affected by the storm, today’s report showed. The state data is reported with a one-week lag.
One state was estimated last week after computer problems in Oklahoma prevented it from generating the data, the Labor Department spokesman said as the figures were being released to the press.
Unadjusted Data
Last week also marked the period when the unadjusted data shows the biggest percentage jump in applications, the spokesman said. Industries such as construction and tourism typically start letting workers go at this time of year, he said.
Estimates in the Bloomberg survey of economists ranged from 360,000 to 395,000. The Labor Department revised the previous week’s figure up to 395,000, from an initially reported 393,000.
The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, rose to 408,000 last week from 405,750.