New York’s initial unemployment claims tumble in latest week

The number of people applying for new unemployment-insurance benefits in New York state in the week ending July 20, fell by 14,966, or 43 percent, to 19,746.

The state saw fewer layoffs in the transportation, construction, and educational services industries, according to a U.S. Department of Labor news release issued today.

The decline signals an improving job market in New York and comes after jobless claims fell by 4,743, or 12 percent, in the prior week. Before these two 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.

No state generated a bigger decline than New York in new applications for unemployment-insurance benefits in the latest week. Pennsylvania was second with a decline of 8,817 claims.

The state data is not seasonally adjusted.

The U.S. Labor Department also reported today that nationwide the number of people filing initial unemployment claims fell by 19,000 to 326,000 for the week ending July 27, compared to the revised figure of 345,000 for the week before.

It’s the lowest number of claims since January 2008. Analysts had been expecting 345,000 initial claims in the latest week, according to Yahoo Finance.

The four-week moving average for national initial jobless claims decreased by 4,500 to 341,250 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 July 27 next week.

Contact Rombel at arombel@cnybj.com