U.S. initial jobless claims tumble to 15-year low

The number of Americans initially applying for unemployment aid fell to the lowest level in 15 years, the latest sign of a strengthening job market, the U. S. Labor Department said Thursday.

In the week ending April 25, the advance figure of seasonally adjusted initial claims for jobless benefits fell by 34,000 to 262, 000, the lowest level since April 2000, the department said.

Meanwhile, the four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of the underlying trend of labor market conditions, edged down by 1,250 to 283,750, also near a 15-year low.

The advance figure of seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending on April 18 stood at 2.25 million, the lowest level since December 2000.

Economists said the labor market is a more accurate gauge of improvement in the U.S. economy than the gross domestic product figures. Although the U.S. economy recovered from the financial crisis at a slow pace, the labor market is strengthening at a faster clip.

The latest upbeat labor market figures may help ease worries about the resilience of the U.S. economic recovery. U.S. real gross domestic (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 0.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, down from 2.2 percent in the previous quarter, according to an advance estimate released by the U.S. Commerce Department on Wednesday.

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that the slowdown of U.S. economy during the winter times was in part due to transitory factors. The central bank offered no signal of any rates hike in sight.

Most economists expected the Fed to wait until September to start raising interest rates. The central bank has kept benchmark short-term interest rates near zero since December 2008. Endite