U.S. Jobless Claims Rebound Modestly From Four-Month Low

(RTTNews) - A day ahead of the release of the more closely watched monthly jobs report, the Labor Department released a report on Thursday showing an uptick by first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits in the week ended September 28th.

The report said initial jobless claims rose to 225,000 last week, an increase of 6,000 from the previous week's revised level of 219,000.

Economists had expected jobless claims to inch up to 220,000 from the 218,000 originally reported for the previous week.

The bigger than expected rebound came a week after jobless claims fell to their lowest level since hitting 216,000 in the week ended May 18th.

"Initial jobless claims rose a touch more than expected in the week ended September 28, but aren't at a level that would signal significant new weakness in the labor market," said Nancy Vanden Houten, Lead U.S. Economist at Oxford Economics.

She added, "Labor market conditions will determine whether the Fed lowers rates by 25bps or 50bps at its next meeting, and we will finalize our forecast for the October baseline after the September employment report is released tomorrow."

Meanwhile, the Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average edged down to 224,250, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average of 225,000.

The report said continuing claims, a reading on the number of people receiving ongoing unemployment assistance, also dipped by 1,000 to 1.826 million in the week ended September 21st.

The four-week moving average of continuing claims also fell to 1,829,250, a decrease of 4,750 from the previous week's revised average of 1,834,000.

On Friday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release its highly anticipated report on the employment situation in the month of September.

Economists currently expect the report to show employment rose by 140,000 jobs in September after climbing by 142,000 jobs in August, while the unemployment rate is expected to hold at 4.2 percent.