US weekly jobless claims trend higher, but economists not bothered
US jobless claims hit a six-week high over the latest reference period, possibly influenced by seasonal quirks in the data, economists said, but remained near multi-decade lows.
Over the week ending on 30 June, initial unemployment claims edged higher by 3,000 to reach 231,000, the Labor Department said.
In parallel, the prior week's estimate was bumped up by 1,000 to hit 228,000.
Economists at Barclays had penciled-in 220,000.
The four-week moving average, which aims to smoothe-out the volatility in the data from one week to the next, increased by 2,250 to reach 224,500.
Meanwhile, secondary unemployment claims, those which are not filed for the first time and referencing the week ending on 23 June, increased by 32,000 to 1.739m.
"The spike in claims in the past couple of weeks probably is nothing to worry about," said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.
"The holiday falls on a different day each year and the seasonals struggle to cope. We think claims likely will jump to about 250K, before dropping back to the trend, in the low 220s, over the next few weeks."