Jobless Claims Dip to 375,000

The number of Americans filing first-time unemployment claims fell to 375,000 last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.

That is 12,000 below the prior week's revised level of 387,000 and in line with forecasts.

The four-week moving average was 396,250, an increase of 1,750 from the previous week's revised average.

The continuing decline in unemployment claims comes as the overall job market shows signs of strength. Employers added 943,000 jobs in July, following the 938,000 added in June.

Also Thursday, the producer price index of final demand rose 1% in July, unchanged from the 1% increase in June. For the 12 months ending in July, the index rose 6.1%, the sharpest rise since it began in 2014.

The PPI report comes after Wednesday's news that consumer prices rose 0.5% in July, down from 0.9% in June and evidence the recent spike in inflation may be moderating.

Recent reports have suggested the economy may be downshifting from its torrid pace in the first half of the year, which saw two consecutive increases in the annual rate of growth in the nation's gross domestic product above 6%. Wells Fargo on Thursday downgraded its growth forecasts for the third quarter and 2021 overall.

"The spread of the Delta variant has been on the rise and reignited some caution surrounding the outlook as a return of some restrictive measures have been taken by state & local governments and businesses," the bank said in its August 2021 outlook. "We have downgraded our Q3 and full year 2021 U.S. GDP forecasts to 6.8% and 6.2%, respectively (from 8.8% and 6.9%, respectively, in our prior forecast). Our full year 2022 GDP forecast has also been downgraded, to 4.4% from 5.7% in the prior forecast."