The number of people who filed new unemployment claims nationally rose by 5,000 to 333,000 in the week ended Aug. 3, but the level of initial claims remained close to a five-year low, according to recent government figures.
The national unemployment rate fell to 7.4 percent in July, marking the lowest unemployment level since 2008, according to the federal Department of Labor.
The U.S. economy gained 162,000 jobs last month, but MarketWatch.com reports economists were hoping for an additional 18,000 jobs.
New York”™s unemployment rate at 7.5 percent is its lowest since February 2009. Connecticut”™s unemployment rate ticked up to 8.1 percent, down from 9 percent last fall. Both metrics are from July. There was no complete breakdown of first-time claims by state in the Aug. 3 data.
The Connecticut Department of Labor offered a number for the first six months of 2013 in which the state”™s nonfarm job growth averaged 1,800 jobs per month (108,000 jobs), compared with a total 8,800 in the first half of 2012 (or 1,466 per month). New York lost 11,000 nonfarm jobs between May and June, but still managed to pare its unemployment rate from 7.6 percent to 7.5 percent.
The rise in employment fell short of Wall Street expectations. Economists polled by MarketWatch.com had expected the U.S. to add 180,000 net jobs, adjusted for seasonal variations and excluding the farm sector.
The number of new jobs created in May and June were revised down by a combined 26,000 by the U.S. Department of Labor, offering evidence that the national recovery remains weaker than hoped.
The July employment figures, drawn from a survey of workplaces, cast some doubt on when the Federal Reserve will begin to scale back a massive bond-purchasing program designed to keep interest rates low, according to Market Watch.
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