Thu., February 9, 2012 8:45am (EST)

Jobless Claims Drop By 15,000

By Mark Memmott

Updated: 4 months ago

The number of Americans who filed first-time claims for jobless benefits dipped to 358,000 last week, down by 15,000 from a revised 373,000 from the week before, the Employment and Training Administration just reported.

At 358,000, claims were the lowest they've been since March 2008.

The "four-week moving average" number of claims was "366,250, a decrease of 11,000 from the previous week's revised average of 377,250."

There have been several signs in recent weeks and months that the labor market is beginning to improve most notably the word last Friday that the nation's jobless rate fell to 8.3 percent in January.


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