New Jobless Claims Fall for Week

Initial jobless claims dropped by 3,000 last week to the lowest level in two months, the Labor Department said Thursday.

The decline to 450,000 new claims for the week ended Saturday was below economists’ forecasts of an increase to 459,000, Bloomberg reported.

The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure, decreased to 464,750, from 478,250 the week before.

Continuing claims for the previous week ended Sept. 4 dropped by 84,000 from a week earlier to 4.49 million.