The number of new claims for US unemployment benefits declined by a seasonally-adjusted 14,000 to 418,000 new applications. This was a better result than expected and is expected to give markets a lift today. Tomorrow’s Non-Farm Payroll report is expected to show 90,000 new jobs were created in June compared to 54,000 in May.
The number of people on emergency unemployment benefits declined 44,183 to 3.26 million in the week ended June 18, the latest week for which data is available. A total of 7.46 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs, down 61,327 from the prior week.
Source: Reuters
