A hiring sign is displayed at a retail store in Downers Grove, Ill., Wednesday, April 12, 2023. On Thursday, the Labor Department reports on the number of people who applied for unemployment benefits last week.
The four-week moving average of claims, which evens out some of the weekly volatility, fell by 9,250 to 237,500.For three weeks in late May and early June, jobless claims had appeared to reach a sustained, higher level, above 260,000. But the past four weeks, claims have retreated and the labor market remains historically healthy.
The U.S. economy has broadly been resilient in the face of the Federal Reserve’s aggressive rate-hiking campaign in its effort to extinguish persistent inflation not seen since the early 1980s.