Slightly more Americans filed for unemployment benefits last week, but the number of claims remains at healthy levels.
Jobless claims rose by 4,000 to 232,000 for the week of Aug. 17, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The four-week average of claims, which evens out some of the weekly gyrations, ticked down by 750 to 236,000.
For the week ending Aug. 10, 1.86 million Americans were collecting jobless benefits, 4,000 more than the week before.
Weekly filings for unemployment benefits, which are a proxy for layoffs, remain low by historic standards.
From January through May, claims averaged a paltry 213,000 a week. But they started rising in May, hitting 250,000 in late July and adding to evidence that high interest rates are taking a toll on the U.S. job market.