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Initial unemployment insurance claims fell 7,000 for the week ending March 2, closing the week at an advance estimate of 340,000, the ""Labor Department"":http://www.ows.doleta.gov/unemploy/ ""reported Thursday"":http://www.ows.doleta.gov/press/2013/030713.asp.
[IMAGE]The decline represents the fourth drop in the last five weeks, indicating a downward trend in layoffs. Economists surveyed by ""Briefing.com"":http://briefing.com/ had projected a rise in claims to 350,000.
Meanwhile, the previous week's advance figure of 344,000 was revised slightly upward to 347,000.
The four-week moving average of first-time claims was 348,750, a decline of 7,000 from the previous week's revised average of 355,750, the department reported. The four-week average is often examined by analysts as a ""smoother"" estimate of claims, which can be choppy with revisions coming down from week to week.
Continuing claims, which are reported on a one-week lag, increased from a revised reading of 3,091,000 for the week ending February 16 to 3,094,000 for the week [COLUMN_BREAK]
ending February 23. The four-week moving average was 3,121,750, a decrease of 37,500 from the preceding week's revised average of 3,159,250.
Continuing claim data tracks the number of longer-term unemployed persons who qualify for regular state jobless benefits and can often show large movements, depending on older first-time claim data and legislative changes to state unemployment programs.
The total number of people claiming benefits in programs for the week ending February 16 was 5,764,168, a weekly increase of 183,841. There were 7,387,649 people claiming benefits in all programs in the comparable week last year.
According to the Labor Department, states reported 1,780,626 people claiming Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) benefits for the week ending February 16, a decline of 225,365 from the prior week. There were 2,929,210 people claiming EUC in the comparable week in 2012.
The largest increases in initial claims for week ending February 23 were in Massachusetts (+4,024), North Carolina (+1,995), Illinois (+1,782), Rhode Island (+988), and Connecticut (+733). The largest decreases were in California (-40,352), New York (-2,070), Texas (-1,334), Florida (-878), and Pennsylvania (-781).
The report comes one day before the ""Bureau of Labor Statistics"":http://www.bls.gov/ is set to release its Employment Situation Report for February, though the data for that report typically comes from the middle of the month. Economists surveyed by ""CNNMoney"":http://money.cnn.com/ expect Friday's report to show an unemployment rate of 7.8 percent in February (down from 7.9 percent in January) with 170,000 new jobs added.
