Jobless claims fall

By Hibah Yousuf, staff reporter
December 31, 2009: 9:28 AM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number
of Americans filing first-time claims for
unemployment insurance fell sharply last
week to the lowest level in 17 months, the
government said Thursday. Analysts had
expected an increase.
There were 432,000 initial jobless claims
filed in the week ended Dec. 26, down 22,000
from the previous week's revised 454,000,
the Labor Department said. The figure is the
lowest since July 19, 2008, when there were
413,000 claims filed.
A consensus estimate of economists
surveyed by Briefing.com expected claims to
jump to 460,000.
The 4-week moving average of initial claims
totaled 460,250, down 5,500 from the
previous week's revised average of 465,750.
"It's encouraging to see that we're
continuing to move in the right direction
toward 400,000 claims," said Tim Quinlan,
economic analyst at Wells Fargo. "We're
certainly off the highs we saw earlier this
year.
Jobless claims have been trending downward
since the end of March, when they peaked at
674,000, the highest figure since 1982.