Initial jobless claims fell unexpectedly in the week ended Jan. 3, marking a possible bright spot among recent, largely dour economic news.

Jobless claims fell by 24,000 to 467,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That was far less than the estimated 540,000 rate.

“These are weekly numbers, and it’s very difficult to adjust the insurance-claims numbers for weeks in which holidays occur,” said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at Global Insight. “We have to see what the January numbers are like” to get an idea of what’s really going on.

The four-week moving average fell as well, down 27,000 to 525,750.

The report shows that companies may have eased up on layoffs during a holiday period, though it also might reflect the volatility that often occurs around the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.

“The decline in initial claims does not mean the labor market is improving,” FOX Business Senior Economist Mark Lieberman said. He cited the holiday volatility as a major reason for the decline. In addition, he said that unemployment-insurance system crashes in New York, North Carolina and Ohio may have resulted in a deceptively low number for this week.

Gault noted that some of the auto companies and other manufacturers that do year-end holiday production shutdowns started those earlier than usual this year, so those workers may have filed unemployment claims earlier in December, rather than in the last couple of weeks of the year.

The jobless numbers from earlier in December “may have been abnormally high,” Gault said. “Maybe we’re getting some payback now -- the numbers were artificially high, and now they’re artificially low.”

The weak part of the report was in continuing claims, which for the week ended Dec. 27 rose by 101,000 to 4.611 million. That’s the highest level since November 1982.

The four-week moving average for continuing claims rose 45,000 to 4.47 million.

Lieberman noted that the continuing claims number doesn’t include 1,922,497 individuals collecting unemployment insurance payments under benefit extension programs, and that figure is up 359,728 from one week earlier.