US initial jobless claims rise by 20,000

Americans lined up for unemployment benefits at an accelerated pace in the week ended 13 July, according to the Labor Department.

Initial jobless claims rose by 20,000 to 243,000, above market expectations for a print of 230,000 to register a fresh weekly high, indicating that the US labour market continued to soften throughout the period.

Continuing claims increased by 20,000 to 1.86m, while the four-week moving average, which aims to strip out week-to-week volatility, increased by 1,000 to 234,750.

Notable increases of 11,537 and 6,917 were recorded in Texas and California, respectively, the former on account of hurricane Beryl.

Nonetheless, Nancy Vanden Houten, lead US economist at Oxford Economics, said the rise in first time claims was notable due to the downward bias in the seasonal adjustment factors applied to the figure.

"Taking a step back from the noise in the data, jobless claims have drifted higher since the start of the year," she said

"We think the rise so far is consistent with a cooling labor market that is characterized more by a slower pace of hiring rather than by higher layoffs."

Reporting by Iain Gilbert at Sharecast.com