More Great News From The Jobs Market

Weekly initial unemployment insurance claims fell to 294,000 during the week ending December 6.

This was lower than the 297,000 expected by economists.

"Claims have been below 300,000 for 12 of the past 13 weeks," Bloomberg's Victoria Stilwell noted.

Continuing claims climbed to 2.514 million from 2.372 million a week ago.

"The spike in continuing claims brought the insured unemployment rate one-tenth higher to 1.9%," Barclays' Jesse Hurwitz noted. "While initial claims have resumed their downward trend following volatility in recent weeks, we look to next week's report to better gauge the near-term trend in continuing claims. On balance, labor market separations have remained at low levels thus far in Q4, and we expect this positive trend to continue in the coming months."