Jobless claims fall

First-time jobless claims for unemployment benefits have fallen for the second consecutive week, but the number of people who want to continue to receive unemployment assistance has increased, according to a Department of Labor report. Jobless claims fell by 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 467,000 in the one-week period ended Jan. 3. That figure was well below the expected 545,000 initial jobless claims expected by economists, according to a survey from Briefing.com Inc. of Chicago. This week's decline came one week after seasonally adjusted initial jobless claims fell by 94,000 to 492,000 for the one-week period ended Dec. 27. The lower figure for jobless claims reflects increased employment volatility at the end of the year. However, the number of continuing jobless claims increased by 101,000 to 4.61 million, the highest level since 1982. The data were released one day after Automatic Data Processing Inc. of Roseland, N.J., and Macroeconomic Advisers LLC of St. Louis reported that private-sector payrolls fell by 693,000 jobs last month. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com are expecting the Labor Department to report Friday that non-farm payrolls shed 500,000 jobs in December, while predicting that the unemployment rate will rise to 7% in December, up from 6.7% the previous month.