Initial jobless claims fall to 210,000

US initial jobless claims fell by a better-than-expected 8,000 in the week ended 21 May, dropping from an unrevised print of 218,000 to 210,000, according to the Labor Department.

On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, initial claims fell by 14,534 week-on-week to 183,927, with notable declines in California, Illinois, Kentucky, and New York.

The four-week moving average, which aims to strip out week-to-week volatility, came to 206,750, an increase of 7,250 from the previous week's unrevised average of 199,500, while continued claims for regular benefits rose 31,000 to 1.34m, maintaining their downtrend near the lowest level in over fifty years and remaining firmly below the 1.7m average in 2019.

The report also revealed that the advance seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate was 1.0% for the week ending 14 May, an increase of 0.1 percentage point from the previous week's unrevised rate.

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com