WASHINGTON (AP) – Fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, a sign of the job market appears to be increasingly secure for workers.
THE NUMBERS: Weekly applications for unemployment aid plunged 25,000 to a seasonally adjusted 234,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dipped to 250,000.
Over the past year, the number of people collecting benefits had tumbled 7.2 percent to 2.03 million.
THE TAKEAWAY: U.S. workers face a lower risk of losing their jobs, since applications are a proxy for layoffs. The weekly figure has remained below 300,000, a level linked with job growth, for 109 weeks. That’s the longest such stretch since 1970, when the U.S. population was much smaller.
KEY DRIVERS: The recovery from the Great Recession is nearly eight years old, with the unemployment rate down to a healthy 4.7 percent. Employers added an average of 237,000 jobs in January and February, a pickup from last year’s average gains of 187,000, according to Labor Department figures.