US jobless claims fall back to trend during latest week
The number of people claiming unemployment claims for the first time fell by more than expected during the last week, returning to the underlying trend that was in place before a Christmas induced jump due to the difficulty of adjusting for seasonal quirks in the data, economists said.
According to the US Department of Labor, initial jobless claims dropped by 9,000 over the week ending on 4 January in comparison to the previous week to reach 214,000.
Analysts had forecast a reading of 220,000.
In parallel, the four-week moving average for claims, which aims to smoothe out the volatility in the data from one week to the next, dropped by an outsized 9,500 to 224,000.
Secondary unemployment claims meanwhile jumped by 75,000 to 1.803m.
"The spike in claims in early December, to a two-year high of 252K, has now fully reversed, confirming that seasonal adjustment problems over the holiday season were the issue, rather than a genuine increase in the pace of layoffs," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.