New applications for unemployment insurance benefits rose to 285,000 in the last week of January, the Department of Labor reported Thursday morning, from 275,000 the week before.
Private-sector economists had expected a slight uptick to 280,000, according to a survey conducted by Bloomberg.
The four-week moving average of claims rose by 2,000 to 284,750, not far from the highest mark since last April.
Thursday numbers suggest that, while still very low, jobless claims are headed up from the rock-bottom levels they scraped in the fall.
Economists view higher jobless claims, which are collected from state agencies on a weekly basis, as a leading sign of more layoffs and a weaker labor market. The Department of Labor adjusts the claims to remove seasonal fluctuations.
Jobless claims have not hit the 300,000 level since February of last year, meaning that they are still well below the levels that would suggest higher unemployment.
In recent months, however, the jobless claims numbers have been less encouraging than payroll job growth, which averaged nearly 284,000 a month in the last quarter of 2015. Payroll job growth is expected to slow anyway as the ranks of the unemployed available to take jobs thin out. At 5 percent, the unemployment rate is not far from where Federal Reserve economists think it would be if the economy were fully healthy.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics is scheduled to issue the jobs report for January on Friday morning. Economists expect 188,000 new nonfarm payroll jobs, and for the unemployment rate to either hold at 5 percent or tick down to 4.9 percent.
