A hiring sign is seen in a cafe as the U.S. Labor Department released its July employment report, in Manhattan, New York City
Reuters

The Labor Department said on Thursday the weekly unemployment insurance claims for the week ending Aug. 17 were 232,000, an increase of 4,000 from the previous week's revised level.

Those numbers were in line with estimates.

The previous week's level was revised up by 1,000 from 227,000 to 228,000.

The 4-week moving average was 236,000, a decrease of 750 from the previous week's revised average.

The advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.2 percent for the week ending Aug. 10.

The highest insured unemployment rates for the week ending Aug. 3 were in New Jersey (2.8), Puerto Rico (2.6), and Rhode Island (2.6).

The largest increases in the initial claims for the week ending Aug 10 were in Georgia (+693), Michigan (+584) and Virginia (+357). The largest decreases for the week were in California (-1,585), Texas (-1,438) and Massachusetts (-972).

For ongoing jobless claims, the numbers came in above 1.8M for the eleventh week in a row as they went up 4,000 to reach 8.86M.

Newly released data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that U.S. job growth over the past year was significantly weaker than initially reported.

The preliminary review, released on Wednesday, revealed there were 818,000 fewer jobs in March 2024 than originally estimated. This marks the largest downward revision to employment figures since 2009.