First-time claims for unemployment insurance rose last week, the Department of Labor reported Thursday.
There were 290,000 initial claims for the week ending Nov. 8, unexpectedly rising by 12,000 from the previous week. Thursday’s disappointing number comes amid a long-term trend toward unemployment claims that are very low by historical standards.
The four-week moving average for claims rose to 285,000. That number had been 279,000 the week before, the lowest mark since 2000.
The total number of people receiving benefits at the end of October declined by 36,654 to just over 2.1 million, the Labor Department said. The total number of beneficiaries is down from nearly 4 million a year ago.
Over the course of the past year, federal long-term emergency benefits have expired and the labor market has shown strong improvement, bringing many workers out of unemployment and onto payrolls. The unemployment rate has fallen from 7.2 to 5.8 percent.
The relatively small number of layoffs is a sign that job growth could accelerate in the months ahead, when taken in conjunction with advertised job vacancies rising to pre-crisis levels in recent months.
Job creation has already accelerated over the course of 2014. Over the year, monthly job gains have averaged nearly 230,000, better than roughly 194,000 in 2013, which in turn was the best year since the financial crisis struck in 2008.
