The U.S. job market appears to remain healthy, if unemployment claims are any indication.
The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits fell slightly last week, dropping to 220,000 for the week ending March 8, according to statistics released by the Labor Department this week.
That’s a drop of some 2,000 from the previous week and is fewer than the 226,000 new requests analysts had expected, according to The Associated Press.
Weekly applications for jobless benefits are considered a proxy for layoffs, and have remained mostly in a range between 200,000 and 250,000 for the past few years.
The four-week average, which evens out some of the week-to-week swings, ticked up by 1,500 to 226,000.
The total number of Americans receiving unemployment benefits for the week of March 1 fell by 27,000 to 1.87 million.
