U.S. Unemployment Applications Touch Low Levels: Is the Job Market Strengthening?

The U.S. Labor Department has reported that the unemployment claims increased modestly by 8,000 for the week ending March 3, with a seasonally adjusted initial claims figure of 362,000, indicating that the job market condition is improving.

The report from the Labor Department stated that there was a decrease in the total number of people claiming benefits in all programs for the week ending February 18. It came down to just below 7.4 million, which was over 100,000 less than the figure from the previous week.

In addition, the report claimed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 2.7 percent for the week ending February 25 and this has remained unchanged from the previous week.

With respect to the U.S. economy, the signs for this year are positive so far. The unemployment rate also fell to 8.3 percent in January, the lowest rate since February 2009, according to a Labor Department report.

The conditions in the labor market are improving regardless of the increase in the unemployment claims.

According to a report from ADP earlier this week, companies added 216,000 workers to their payrolls in February. For the last five months, the job growth has averaged above 200,000 a month.

It is notable that the ADP report does not measure government workers. The government is expected to announce the report on February jobs Friday.