Initial jobless and continuing claims fall in October's final week
More good news on the employment front: Initial jobless claims fell 20,000, to 512,000, for the week ending Oct. 31, and continuing claims declined 68,000, to 5.75 million, the U.S. Labor Department announced Thursday.
A Bloomberg News survey had expected initial jobless claims to fall to 523,000 this week. The four-week moving average, which economists view as a better indicator because it smooths out anomalies for strikes, holidays or other idiosyncratic events, decreased 3,000 to 523,750. A year ago, initial jobless claims totaled 488,000 and continuing claims totaled 3.86 million.
