Jobless Claims Fall to Lowest Level Since July

Initial jobless claims dropped by 24,000 last week to the lowest level since July, the Labor Department said Wednesday.

The decline put claims for the week ended Saturday at 435,000, lower than the 450,000 projected by economists, Bloomberg reported.

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure, fell to 446,500, the lowest since September 2008, from 456,600 the week before.

Continuing claims for the previous week ended Oct. 30 dropped by 86,000 from a week earlier, to 4.3 million.