WASHINGTON (AP) — Slightly more Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week as layoffs remain at relatively healthy levels.
The number of Americans filing for jobless aid for the week ending Feb. 21 rose by 4,000 to 212,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s in line with the forecasts of analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet.
Filings for unemployment benefits are viewed as representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.
The four-week moving average of jobless claims, which balances some of the week-to-week volatility, ticked up by 750 to 220,250.
The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Feb. 14 fell by 31,000 to 1.83 million, the government said.
