The number of people applying for new unemployment-insurance benefits in New York state in the week ending Aug. 3, fell by 712, or almost 4 percent, to 18,565, according to a U.S. Department of Labor news release issued Thursday.
The decline indicates an improving job market in New York and comes after jobless claims fell by 6 percent, 43 percent, and 12 percent, respectively, in the three weeks before that. Prior to these four weeks of falling claims in the state, New York had posted a three-month high of 39,455 jobless claims in the week ending July 6.
The number of New Yorkers continuing to receive unemployment benefits also fell in the week ending Aug. 3, declining to 231,041 from 234,144 the week before.
The state data is not seasonally adjusted.
The U.S. Labor Department also reported Thursday that nationwide the number of people filing initial unemployment claims fell by 15,000 to 320,000 for the week ending Aug. 10, compared to the revised figure of 335,000 for the week prior.
Analysts had been expecting initial claims to rise in the latest week to about 340,000, according to Yahoo Finance.
The four-week moving average for national initial jobless claims decreased by 4,000 to 332,000 in the latest week. The U.S. data is seasonally adjusted.
The Labor Department will release state data for new unemployment-benefit filings for the week ending Aug. 10 next week.
Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com