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Thursday, October 23, 2008
Jobless Claims Jump to 478K
FOXBusiness
The number of people filing for unemployment jumped more than expected in the latest week, showing further evidence that the labor market is weakening.
The Labor Department said Thursday the number of initial jobless claims jumped by 15,000 to 478,000 in the week ended Oct 18, from a revised 463,000 the prior week. Economists expected jobless claim to rise to 470,000.
The four-week moving average, a metric economists often point to as more important than the claims number itself, however, fell to 480,250.
The Labor Department said Hurricane Ike added about 12,000 claims to the total.
Many economists expect the labor market to deteriorate further as companies lay off more, and hire fewer employees.
"The pace of firing, captured by [jobless] claims, tells us nothing about hiring -- but there is every reason to expect hiring to drop in the wake of the disaster in the stock markets and the continued tightening of credit," High Frequency Economics Chief U.S. Economist Ian Shepherdson wrote in a research note.
"We expect the trend in payrolls to worsen further over the next few months, with declines in excess of 200K per month likely before too long."
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