According to the weekly report of the US Department of Labor, the number of Americans who applied for unemployment benefits for the first time decreased by 2 thousand and amounted to 243 thousand people. The current statistics surprised analysts who expected the indicator to grow to 252 thousand. A week earlier, according to the revised data, the figure was 245 thousand, not 250 thousand, as previously reported. The average number of applications over the last 4 weeks (a less volatile indicator) increased by 1.5 thousand to 247 thousand. The number of Americans continuing to receive unemployment benefits fell to 1.415 million from a revised 1.434 million in the previous week. At the same time, experts on average predicted an increase in the indicator to 1.442 million.
