The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the U.S. continues to trend at historically low levels, according to the latest Unemployment Insurance Weekly Claims report released by the Department of Labor (DOL) Thursday.
The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for unemployment insurance was 237,000 for the second week of June, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week, according to the report.
The four-week moving average was 243,000, an increase of 1,000 from the previous week’s unrevised figure of 242,000. The weekly figure comes a day after the Federal Reserve raised its benchmark interest rate over the 1 percent mark for the first time since 2008.
While the week-to-week incremental changes in the numbers aren’t as important as overall trends, the fact that applications for unemployment benefits have come in below 300,000 for 119 straight weeks is a sign that job opportunities in America remain available.
The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending on May 27 were in Alaska at 2.9 percent, Puerto Rico at 2.8 percent and New Jersey at 2.2 percent. Connecticut and California rounded out the top five with rates of 2.0 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.
The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending June 3 were in Pennsylvania with 980 more than than the previous week, Arkansas with 756 and Florida with an increase of 554 claims. The largest decreases were in California, with a 8,313 drop in claims, followed by Kansas with a decrease of 2,350 and Missouri, which decreased by 2,144.
The report comes out just over a week after a separate report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) revealed that the number of job openings in America was at its highest level since the federal government started tracking the figure in 2001.
Approximately 6.04 million job openings were available in April, according to the job openings and labor turnover survey, released by the BLS last week. That figure represents an increase of 400,000 job openings from the same month last year.
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