New U.S. jobless claim fall slightly to 216,000

The numbers: The number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits in late January fell slightly and gave no hint of rising layoffs, indicating the labor market remains very robust.

Initial jobless claims declined by 7,000 to 216,000 in the seven days ended Jan. 25, the government said Thursday. The figures are seasonally adjusted.

Unusually, new claims in the prior week were revised up by a large 12,000 to 223,000. Big revision like that are rare but can happen sometimes around the holiday season.

The more stable monthly average of jobless claims that filters out the weekly ups and downs fell by 1,750 to 214,500.

New unemployment claims are seen as a rough measure of how many people are losing their jobs. They briefly fell under 200,000 last April to a 50-year low and have hovered in the low 200,000s since then.

What happened: Raw or unadjusted jobless claims gyrated sharply in the past few weeks in California and several other states, likely reflecting the typical changes in employment after the holiday season when temporary workers are let go.

Broader employment trends are little changed: New claims are lower now than they were compared to the same week one year ago.

More evidence: The number of people already collecting unemployment benefits fell by 44,000 to 1.7 million to return close to postrecession lows.