U.S. jobless claims increased by 10,000 to 268,000 for the week ended June 25, Bloomberg reports.
The figures are included in a new report the U.S. Labor Department released today, and indicate that the number of Americans who applied last week for unemployment benefits rose to a level that’s still consistent with steady improvement in the labor market.
The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey called for 267,000. Continuing claims decreased for the third week of the last four.
Companies are reluctant to fire workers as skilled and experienced employees become difficult to attract in a tighter labor market. Dismissals that are still hovering near four-decade lows signal a recent slowdown in payrolls may be short-lived as household spending continues to fuel the economy.
“We’re not seeing any huge increase in job losses out there,” Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James Financial Inc. in St. Petersburg, Florida, who correctly forecast the number of claims, tells Bloomberg. “It’s consistent with further improvement in the labor market.”
