Unemployment Claims Fall Again

Reuters
Alexander Abad-Santos 345 Views Nov 17, 2011

Initial unemployment benefits claims have dropped again, this time to 388,000, down from last week's 393,000, according to the Department of Labor's numbers this morning.

In the week ending November 12, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 388,000, a decrease of 5,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 393,000. The 4-week moving average was 396,750, a decrease of 4,000 from the previous week's revised average of 400,750.

And apparently, that's a good thing.  It's our third straight week under the magic 400,000 number--"a threshold many economists believe signifies improving labor market conditions," reports Reuters and we're building off of last week's seven-month low.  As Business Insider puts it: "We're consistently seeing improving numbers here which makes it very hard to believe we're heading into recession."

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