US labor market: claims for unemployment benefits down to 205,000, better than estimates

Good news from the US labor market. Last week, the number of American workers filing for first-time jobless benefits fell by 1,000 to 205,000, better than the 215,000 expected by the analyst consensus.

The prior week’s figure was revised slightly upward to 206,000 units, from 204,000 units initially disclosed.

The four-week average of the just-released report rose to 215,500, up from 214,250 last week.

The number of US workers still receiving unemployment benefits came in at 1.634 million, down from last week’s 1.687 million and better than the 1.705 million forecast by economists.