U.S. initial jobless claims see first rise in a month to 266,000

The number of Americans initially applying for unemployment aid increased last week, the first rise in a month, while the job market kept expanding as a whole, official figures showed Thursday.

In the week ending July 23, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims for jobless benefits rose to 266,000, with an increase of 14,000 from the revised level of the previous week, the U.S. Labor Department said.

The data is higher than the market expectation of 260,000, but the four-week moving average, which helps smooth out week-to-week volatility, kept its falling trend since the end of June. The figure stood at 256,500, a decrease of 1,000 from the previous week's revised average.

This marks 73 consecutive weeks of initial claims below 300,000, a benchmark for real job growth or loss in the economy, the longest streak since 1973, said the department.

On balance, payrolls and other labor market indicators point to some increase in labor utilization in recent months, said the Federal Reserve on Wednesday when it decided to keep the federal funds rate unchanged.

Meanwhile, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending July 16 increased 7,000 from the previous week to 2,139,000. Endi