Weekly US jobless claims print ahead of forecasts

The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment claims edged higher unexpectedly last week, although some economists had expected worse.

According to the Department of Labor, 745,000 initial claims were filed during the week ending on 27 February, marking a rise of 9,000 on the week before.

Consensus had been for a drop in initial claims to 710,000.

Furthermore, the prior week's estimate was revised up by 6,000 to 730,000.

Yet the four-week moving average of claims meanwhile, which aims to smooth out the volatility in claims data from one week to the next, dropped by 16,750 to 790,750.

Secondary claims, or those which are not being filed for the first time and referencing the week ending on 20 February decreased by 124,000 to 4.419m.

Initial claims data are more closely-linked to firing in the economy, as opposed to secondary claims which tend to more closely track hiring.

"We expected a substantially bigger rebound after the huge winter storm pushed claims down, so this reading suggests that the underlying trend in layoffs is falling, thanks to the reopening now underway across many states," Ian Shepherdson, chief US economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics told clients.

"As always, though, two good weeks in this volatile series don’t prove anything, but whatever happens next week, we expect the trend to fall sharply over the next few months, provided the new Covid variants don’t trigger a spring wave in cases and, more importantly, hospitalizations. The jury is still out."