Your Economy (No Politics)

[Bullwinkle]

Initial Jobless Claims in U.S. Fell 11,000 Last Week to 273,000
Bob Willis in Washington


Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Initial jobless claims unexpectedly declined last week and the number of Americans on unemployment benefit rolls dropped to the lowest level in almost five years.

First-time jobless claims fell by 11,000 to 273,000 in the week ended Jan. 28, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The four-week average decreased to the lowest level since June 2000.

Continuing jobless claims in the prior week fell to 2.509 million, the lowest since February 2001, suggesting Americans are having greater success finding work. Employers added a quarter of a million workers to their payrolls in January, according to a survey of economists before a separate report tomorrow on monthly employment.

``Plummeting initial and continuing claims both point to a blockbuster January payroll report,'' said Zoltan Pozsar, economist at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, before the report.

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure, declined to 284,250 from 289,000 the week before, the Labor Department said.

Economists expected jobless claims to rise to 295,000, the median of 37 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey, from an originally reported 283,000 a week earlier. Last week's level of claims was below the survey's lowest estimate of 275,000.

Continuing claims declined in the week that ended Jan. 21 from 2.573 million. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits, which tends to track the U.S. jobless rate, declined to 1.9 percent in the week ended Jan. 21 from 2 percent.

States and Territories

All 53 states and territories reported fewer filings that week.

Unusually warm weather in January may have translated into faster payroll growth last month after a 108,000 increase in December, Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research Corp. in New York, said before tomorrow's report at 8:30 a.m. in Washington.

The economy generated 2 million jobs last year, the second- most since 1999, and averaged 168,000 a month. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent in December, matching a four-year low. Mike Englund of Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado, forecasts a decline to 4.7 percent this year.

President George W. Bush this week in his State of the Union Address tried to shore up support for his economic program.

`Healthy and Vigorous'

``Our economy is healthy and vigorous and growing faster than other major industrialized nations,'' Bush said. ``In the last two and a half years, America has created 4.6 million new jobs, more than Japan and the European Union combined.''

With the outlook for employment brightening, Americans were more upbeat in January. Consumer confidence rose to the highest level since June 2002 as more people than at anytime since the September 2001 terrorist attacks said jobs were plentiful, the Conference Board said Jan. 31.

Japan's Hino Motors Ltd., Toyota Motor Corp.'s commercial vehicle unit, said it may soon announce plans to build a truck assembly plant in Arkansas to keep up with growing North American sales.

``We are anticipating over the next few years that we're going to need more production capacity to keep up with sales growth,'' said Guy Bradford, Hino's U.S. national sales manager, Jan. 26 at an interview.

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